A Face and a Name

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I. Summary

Iraqi families were shopping and preparing for evening
prayers at the People of Musayyib Husainiyya Mosque in the town of Musayyib on July 16, 2005,
when the bomb blew up. A suicide bomber from an unknown armed group detonated
his explosives next to a tanker truck filled with cooking gas, igniting a
massive fire-ball that swept through the market and surrounding streets.

"I saw how the flames swallowed the panicked people as they
ran away," a local teacher said. "The fire chased the people down and ate them
alive."[1]

More than ninety civilians died in the mostly Shi`a Muslim
town just south of Baghdad,
including women and children. Hundreds more were badly burned or pierced by
shrapnel.

The Musayyib bombing is but one example of an insurgent
attack in Iraq
targeting civilians. Since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in March 2003,
armed opposition groups have purposely killed thousands of civilians-men, women
and children. Across the country, insurgents have used car bombs and suicide
bombers, like the one in Musayyib, to maximize the number of civilian injuries
and deaths. They have assassinated government officials, politicians, judges,
journalists, humanitarian aid workers and those deemed to be collaborating with
the foreign forces in Iraq.
They have tortured and summarily executed, sometimes by beheading, persons in
their custody. And attacks against legitimate military targets, such as army
convoys, have been carried out in such a manner that the foreseeable loss of
civilian life was far disproportionate to the military gain. All of these
attacks are serious violations of international humanitarian law-war crimes-and
in some cases they are crimes against humanity.

This report aims to give the civilian victims of these
attacks a face and a name. Through victim and witness testimony, it documents
some of the crimes committed against civilians by insurgent groups, and
addresses the arguments these groups and their supporters use to justify
unlawful attacks.

It also places insurgent abuses in context; namely, the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq
and the ensuing military occupation that resulted in tens of thousands of
civilian deaths and sparked the emergence of these insurgent groups. Chief
among the justifications insurgent groups use is that the United States
illegally invaded Iraq and has killed untold thousands of Iraqi civilians over
the past two-and-a-half years.

Previous Human Rights Watch reports have documented the use
of indiscriminate and excessive force by U.S. forces during raids on
residential areas and at checkpoints. Thousands of suspected insurgents in U.S.
and Iraqi government custody have been detained without regard to the
protections afforded by international law. U.S. forces have committed torture
and humiliation of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention centers,
and mistreatment of detainees by Iraqi authorities has been systematic. Few
persons responsible for abuses-and none at higher levels-have been criminally
prosecuted.

These abuses have enraged many Iraqis, as well as people
outside Iraq,
and are one motivating factor behind the insurgency's steady growth over the
past two years. But they in no way justify attacks on civilians by insurgent
groups, who are legally bound to respect international humanitarian law,
regardless of their adversary's behavior, and whether or not they recognize the
law. It is to promote the principle that civilians may never be the object of
attack that Human Rights Watch has published this report.

The laws of war, binding on government armed forces and
non-state armed groups, prohibit direct attacks on civilians, attacks made with
no effort to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and attacks that
cause civilian loss disproportionate to the expected military gain. Also
prohibited are attacks intended primarily to spread terror among the civilian
population. Crimes committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack
against a civilian population are considered crimes against humanity. Anyone
responsible for serious violations is subject to prosecution, including those
commanders who ordered or knew or should have known of the unlawful attacks and
did nothing.

The report divides the civilian victims into nine categories
to explain how they have been attacked, why they were attacked and the
justifications the attackers used. The commonality is that the insurgents
considered their target in some way associated with the U.S.-led Multi-National
Force in Iraq or the
country's current government, which they view as an agent of the United States.
For the insurgents, most of whom are Sunni Arabs, the Iraqi government is an
illegitimate institution that serves the United States or is unfairly dominated
by Shi`a Muslims and Kurds.

The report also documents attacks against Iraqi, U.S.
and other coalition military forces that violate the laws of war. Some
insurgent groups have committed war crimes by executing, torturing or otherwise
mistreating combatants in their custody. They have violated the laws of war by
committing perfidious attacks on military targets, that is, attacks in which
the attacker feigns being a civilian. And some insurgent attacks on military
targets have unlawfully failed to discriminate between combatants and civilians
or have caused disproportionate civilian casualties. While international law
does not prohibit insurgents from attacking military targets, such attacks are violations
of Iraqi criminal law for which the perpetrators may be prosecuted. Likewise,
Iraqi government forces are liable under domestic law for torturing detainees
and other misuses of force. This report assesses the conduct of the insurgents
solely under the applicable provisions of the international laws of war.

A chapter on the insurgent groups describes the various
groups active in Iraq,
most of them composed of Sunni Arabs, who are fighting the multinational and
Iraqi government forces. This is complex because "the insurgency" is a general
term used to describe an array of groups with different structures, allegiances
and aims, as well as seemingly different views on the acceptable objects and
methods of attack. Some groups have at times condemned attacks on civilians,
while others like Ansar al-Sunna, al-Qaeda in Iraq
and the Islamic Army in Iraq
have publicly extolled their responsibility for serious crimes through videos
and statements on bomb attacks, abductions and executions of civilians.

The report presents the arguments some insurgent groups and
their supporters use to justify attacks on civilians. Most of these stem from
the view that all means are legitimate to liberate Iraq from foreign forces; thus,
anyone perceived as associated with the occupation is open to attack. But none
of the arguments justify the attacks documented in this report, which are in
clear violation of international humanitarian law. Not only should all
insurgent groups in Iraq
cease such attacks, but the political and religious leaders in Iraq
and other countries who have expressed support for the insurgency should
condemn the targeting of civilians, all acts that put civilians unnecessarily
at risk and the mistreatment of those in custody.

By documenting these abuses, Human Rights Watch is
challenging the disregard for international law endorsed by some insurgent
groups in Iraq.
Regardless of the violations committed by U.S.
and Iraqi forces, almost daily attacks on civilians have had a devastating
impact on the people of Iraq
and further undermine respect for the rule of law.

The Victims

The exact number of civilians killed by unlawful insurgent
attacks since the fall of Baghdad
in April 2003 is unknown. The chaos of the conflict, the partial functioning of
Iraqi institutions and the unwillingness of the United States to keep statistics on
civilian deaths make accurate statistics very difficult to obtain. Still, all
evidence suggests that insurgent attacks in Iraq have killed many more
civilians than combatants.

The report divides the civilian victims of insurgent attacks
into nine categories, although these often overlap. First are attacks on
members of Iraq's
various religious and ethnic groups. Some insurgent groups have struck Shi`a
Muslim shrines in Karbala and Najaf with massive
bombs, killing hundreds, as well as Shi`a mosques and funeral services in
cities like Mosul and Baghdad. Insurgents have attacked Kurdish
civilians, most severely in February 2004, when twin suicide bombers killed
ninety-nine people in Arbil. And some groups have victimized Iraq's small Christian community
through church bombings, abductions and murders, forcing tens of thousands of
Christians to flee abroad or to the relative security of the Kurdish-controlled
north.

-In the eyes of some insurgent groups, Shi`a
Muslims, Kurds and Christians are legitimate targets because they believe them
to have sided with the occupying forces in Iraq, or to be supporting the
current Iraqi government. To the extreme Islamist groups like al-Qaeda in Iraq, the
Shi`a are apostates who have betrayed Islam. Kurdish fighters fought alongside U.S.
forces in 2003, and the Kurdish pershmerga remain close to the Multi-National
Force. And some attacks may be motivated by long-standing tension between the
religious and ethnic groups, and the struggle for power in post-Saddam Iraq. None
of these arguments or explanations justifies attacks on civilians within these
groups.

A second targeted category is Iraqis who work for foreign
governments or their armed forces as reconstruction contractors, translators,
cleaners, and drivers or in other non-combatant jobs. Some insurgent groups
consider Iraqis in these positions to be collaborators, and attacks against
them are apparently meant as punishment and as a warning to others. In one case
documented in this report, gunmen killed three women as they left a U.S. military base in Mosul
where they worked as cleaners, and attacks like this have been frequent across Iraq.

Third is Iraqis holding government or political posts. The list
of assassinations is long, with victims from most of the major parties that
have formally entered politics since 2003. Included in this group are members
of the Iraqi Interim Government and election workers who were murdered while
trying to organize the January 2005 election.

A fourth category is civilians who are waiting to sign up
for the Iraqi police or armed forces, which have frequently been the target of
car bomb and suicide bomb attacks outside recruitment centers. As they are not
yet members of the security forces nor civilians actively participating in
hostilities, they are not legitimate military targets under international
humanitarian law.

A fifth category is staff of international and
nongovernmental organizations, some of which have been active in Iraq
since before the war. The most deadly attacks were the truck bombs that
exploded at the United Nations (U.N.) headquarters in August 2003 and the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Baghdad headquarters in October that same
year. Insurgent groups have threatened and sometimes killed humanitarian aid
workers, most of them Iraqis. Almost all international humanitarian
organizations have left Iraq
for security reasons, severely limiting the aid they can provide a population
in need.

A sixth category is journalists and media workers. Some
insurgent groups have bombed media offices and targeted journalists with
abductions and executions. The vast majority of victims are Iraqis who worked
as local journalists or as reporters, drivers, cameramen and translators for international
media, but foreign journalists have also lost their lives.

The seventh category is Iraq's intellectuals and
professionals, including doctors, lawyers and academics. Armed groups have
abducted between 160 and 300 Iraqi doctors since April 2003, and killed more
than twenty-five, the Iraqi Ministry of Health concluded in April 2005. They
have murdered at least forty-eight professors since mid-2003, a United Nations
study said. Some of the abductions and killings may be criminally motivated
because the victims were considered to have more money to pay in ransom. But
some killings appear politically motivated, either because the victim had
expressed sympathy for the U.S.-led intervention or had criticized the
insurgency, or because the person was believed to hold such views. According to
some Iraqis, the attacks are an attempt to destroy the country's intellectual
elite.

The eighth category is women. Many women have been attacked
because of their participation in the categories mentioned above-in their roles
as politicians, civil servants, journalists and humanitarian aid workers, as
well as for their work as cleaners or translators for foreign governments or
militaries. But some insurgent groups have attacked women's rights activists
and Iraqi women for what they consider "immoral" or "un-Islamic" behavior, like
promoting women's rights, socializing with men or not covering their heads in
public. The violence and lack of security has had a major impact on Iraqi
women, who once enjoyed a public role in the country's social and political
life.

The ninth and final category is non-Iraqi nationals,
including drivers, businesspeople, contractors, journalists, diplomats,
humanitarian workers and others in civilian jobs. Since April 2003, insurgent
groups have abducted more than 200 non-Iraqis from at least twenty-two
countries, killing at least fifty-two. An estimated forty-three people are
missing. The goal is often to pressure the victim's government or company into
withdrawing from Iraq,
or obtaining other concessions, such as the release of prisoners. A common
motivation is money; non-Iraqis are targeted because of the ransom that the
insurgents, or a criminal group, hope to extract.

Victims of insurgent attacks may be from overlapping
categories, and the precise reason for their being targeted is not always
clear. Some Christians and Kurds, for example, might have been killed because
of their religion or ethnicity, or because they worked for the U.S.
military. Insurgent groups might have targeted Shi`a Muslim leaders because of
their religious or political importance, or because they were participating in
the Iraqi governing structures. Certain women may have been targeted for their
occupation as much as for their gender. Lastly, many Iraqis have lost their
lives in attacks targeted against others because they were in the wrong place
at the wrong time.

Finally, Iraqi insurgents are not just committing war crimes
against civilians, but also against the Multi-National and Iraqi forces. One
chapter of the report documents mistreatment and executions, sometimes by
beheading, of multinational and Iraqi forces taken into custody by insurgent
groups. In addition, many insurgent attacks on legitimate military targets have
been carried out using perfidy, usually by pretending to be civilians in order
to carry out a suicide attack.

Insurgent Groups

The term "insurgency" is used to describe a spectrum of
armed opposition groups in Iraq
with different structures and strategies, although they are united by common
immediate goals: to expel the U.S.-led military coalition from Iraq
and to overthrow the current Iraqi government. Determining who is who is
difficult, if not impossible, with dozens if not hundreds of groups engaged in
military activity, and many unverifiable claims of responsibility. As such,
this report presents a general overview of the insurgency without details on
the specific groups.

The insurgent groups covered in this report are comprised
predominantly of Sunni Arabs, who make up approximately 20 percent of Iraq's
population, and their activities are focused in the country's center, northwest
and west. Individuals apparently join the insurgency for a variety of reasons:
a desire to expel foreign forces from Iraq,
fear of marginalization by a Shi`a-dominated government after decades of Sunni
control and a struggle over strategic areas like Kirkuk. Some view the insurgency as part of a
global Islamic fight against the United States. Others may join as a
way to survive during a time of high unemployment. At the same time, many Sunni
support the insurgents or their aims without joining their ranks. And untold
other Sunni oppose the insurgents or their means, even publicly condemning
attacks on civilians, and have themselves been attacked.

The insurgency can be divided very broadly into three
general categories: extreme Islamist, Ba`thist and Sunni nationalist. As with
the victims, the categories of armed groups overlap. The groups in the extreme
Islamist category have generated the most attention due to prominent operations
that have intentionally killed many civilians. The best known of these groups
are Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam), a Kurdish group that existed before
the war, Ansar al-Sunna (Supporters of the Sunni) and al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, apparently run by Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi, a
Jordanian. These groups have claimed responsibility for detonating car bombs
and suicide bombs in crowded civilian areas, abducting businessmen, contractors
and journalists, and executing captive Iraqi police and soldiers, sometimes by
distributing grisly videos of their deaths. In general, these groups say they
seek a pure Islamic state, with legal and institutional structures based on
strict interpretation of the Qur'an. For them, the armed conflict in Iraq
is part of a global war they term jihad
against the imperialism and military aggression of the United States and
corrupt, un-Islamic dictatorships in the Arab world. Foreign fighters from Saudi Arabia, Syria,
Yemen, Kuwait and Jordan
have joined the fight, although their numbers in Iraq are unclear. Less than 5
percent of the killed or captured insurgents have been non-Iraqi, a coalition
official said in spring 2005.

The second general category is linked to Saddam Hussein's
ousted Ba`th Party. Apparently led and funded by former members of the Iraqi
security structures, groups like Saddam's Fedayin (Saddam's Martyrs), al-`Awda
(The Return) and Wahaj al-`Iraq (Flame of Iraq) have staged attacks against
multinational and Iraqi government forces. They are also responsible for
targeted killings and attacks on military targets, such as with roadside bombs,
that failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians, or caused
disproportionate civilian casualties. Available evidence suggests they have not
been responsible for many of the suicide bomb attacks on civilians and the
summary executions of captured members of the security forces, although they
may cooperate with or fund groups responsible for such crimes. Some of the
groups in this category have a desire to see their old leader return, but
others apparently have no current connection with Saddam Hussein.

The third general category is what some analysts call
nationalist, or Sunni nationalist, comprised mostly of Sunni Arabs who wish to
expel foreign forces from Iraq, but are not as driven by religion or ties to
the Ba`th Party. Some of these groups say they want an Iraq guided by Islamic principles,
but they do not share the vision of the extreme Islamist groups. Compared to
groups like Ansar al-Sunna and al-Qaeda in Iraq, these groups apparently limit
their attacks more to military targets, and some, like the al-Jabha al-Islamiyya
al-`Iraqiyya al-Muqawima (Islamic Front of the Iraqi Resistance) have at times
condemned attacks on civilians. However, some of these groups are also believed
to have abducted civilians or targeted them for attack.

These three categories are not strictly defined, as
religious and nationalist groups blend, and they are not meant to neatly
classify insurgent groups as better or worse with respect to their compliance
with the laws of war. The al-Jaysh al-Islami fi al-`Iraq
(Islamic Army in Iraq),
for instance, is a predominantly Sunni nationalist group with a strong Islamic
bent. It has apparently not carried out car bomb or suicide bomb attacks on
civilians, but it has repeatedly claimed responsibility for abductions and
summary executions of civilians. Some Ba`th-affiliated groups, although
stemming from a secular party, are apparently cooperating with and funding some
of the Islamist groups.

The vast majority of insurgents are Sunni Arabs, but other
armed groups operate in Iraq,
including Shi`a Muslim groups. Among these groups is the al-Mahdi Army, led by
the Shi`a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Badr Organization of the Supreme
Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Credible information
received by Human Rights Watch indicates that these groups are responsible for
kidnappings, torture and assassinations, including revenge attacks against
persons associated with the former government or Ba`th Party. However, their
actions are not considered in this report because they are currently not
engaged in hostilities against multinational or Iraqi government forces, and as
such do not form part of the insurgency.

Lastly, not all abductions and killings of civilians in Iraq
that appear linked to insurgent groups are their doing. Common crime is rampant
throughout Iraq.
Criminals masked as insurgents have abducted people for ransom or for sale to
insurgent groups. Likewise, some insurgent groups apparently engage in common
crimes, such as kidnapping and robbery, to obtain funds for their military
operations. In the lawlessness of today's Iraq, the line between the
political and criminal is often blurred.

Arguments of Insurgent Groups

The insurgent groups in Iraq that target civilians use two
broad arguments to justify their acts. First, they contend that persons in any
way supporting the Multi-National Force in Iraq-which they believe remains a
foreign occupation-are not civilians entitled to protection because of their
collaboration with the United States and its coalition. This includes Iraqis
employed as translators, drivers and construction contractors for foreign
governments and Shi`a Muslims, Kurds and Christians, because these groups have
in general supported the military invasion that overthrew the Saddam Hussein
government.

Because many insurgent groups believe the current Iraqi
government is serving the foreign occupation, politicians, government officials
and bureaucrats are also targeted. Westerners by definition are considered part
of the foreign presence, thus various insurgent groups target foreign
officials, including diplomats, western journalists and aid workers.

Second, insurgent groups contend that the nature of the
armed conflict in Iraq,
rather than the identity of the victims, permits attacks on civilians. The
arguments of insurgent groups include:

in a war to drive foreign occupiers out
of Iraq,
the ends justify the means;

in a war against the military
superpower of the world, an insurgency with small arms and explosives is
obliged to go after non-military, or so-called "soft" targets;

insurgent groups are bound only by
Islamic law, and not international humanitarian law;

Islamic law allows the killing of
civilians in a war of self-defense;

the illegality of the U.S.-led attack
on Iraq,
as well as violations of the laws of war by the Multi-National Force,
remove any obligation on insurgent groups to abide by the laws of war.

None of these justifications are defensible under
international law. The armed conflict in Iraq is regulated by the 1949
Geneva Conventions and customary international humanitarian law. This law
applies to both government armed forces and opposition armed groups, regardless
of whether the forces to the conflict recognize the law. The laws of war are
applicable whether the war is lawful or not, and regardless of violations by
the other side. Reprisals are banned.

As described in the chapter on legal standards, international
humanitarian law prohibits direct attacks against civilians at any time and for
whatever reason. It also bans attacks that do not discriminate between
civilians and combatants and attacks that cause disproportionate harm to
civilians in light of the expected military gain. So long as a civilian is not
taking a "direct part in hostilities," a concept discussed in the report, he or
she is immune from attack. Although there are gray areas regarding whether
certain conduct constitutes direct participation in hostilities, the conduct of
the victims whose cases are documented in this report were unambiguously
civilian in nature.

Serious violations of international humanitarian law are war
crimes. All those taking part in unlawful attacks or are liable as a matter of
command responsibility are subject to prosecution. Crimes committed as part of
a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population are considered
crimes against humanity under international law, and those responsible are
subject to prosecution anywhere in the world.

Violations by U.S. and Iraqi Government Forces

Responsibility for the abuses documented in this report
rests with the perpetrators. However, the U.S.
and Iraqi governments have committed violations of the laws of war that raise
serious doubts about their stated commitment to promoting the rule of law in Iraq. The
torture and humiliation of detainees by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib and other
detention centers, the unjustified killing of civilians at U.S. military
checkpoints and during U.S. military operations, and the long-term detention
without charge of persons apprehended, contribute to widespread disdain for the
foreign military presence among ordinary Iraqis, whatever their views about an
invasion that left tens of thousands of Iraqis dead but toppled the abusive
government of Saddam Hussein.

The U.S.-backed Iraqi government has committed arbitrary
arrests and systematic torture against persons in detention, while militias
linked to political parties in the government have been implicated in
abductions, torture and assassinations. The fact that the Iraqi police and
armed forces are under regular attack from insurgent groups does not absolve
the government of its obligation to respect international law in its law
enforcement and counter-insurgency operations.

Such abuses contribute to the general lawlessness in Iraq
and provide a handy if illegitimate rationale for the insurgents to commit
abuses of their own. If the U.S.
and Iraqi governments are sincere about establishing the rule of law in Iraq,
ensuring respect for that law among their own forces is an important place to
start.

Methodology

This report is based on research in January-February 2005 in
Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq,
where Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed twenty-nine victims and
witnesses of insurgent attacks. The researchers interviewed three more victims
and international humanitarian organizations during a subsequent week in Amman, Jordan.
Security conditions prohibited travel to Iraq's
center or south and, as such, the report's victim testimony is weighted towards
people in the north, although some of those interviewed had fled from Baghdad. The full names of
some interviewees are not used for their protection. Reports from established
Iraqi and international media are frequently used, but only when two or more
sources exist.

II. Recommendations

All armed forces in Iraq-insurgent groups, Iraqi forces
and the U.S.-led Multi-National Force-are bound to respect international
humanitarian law, or the laws of war. The law imposes on these warring parties
legal obligations to reduce unnecessary suffering and to protect civilians and
other non-combatants.

Previous Human Rights Watch reports have documented abuses
by the U.S.
and Iraqi governments, and made recommendations to address those abuses.[2]

Cease
all attacks against civilians, the civilian population and civilian
objects, both Iraqi and non-Iraqi. Civil servants, politicians, religious
leaders, humanitarian aid workers, journalists and civilian employees of
foreign governments are immune from attack;

Cease
all attacks that do not discriminate between combatants and civilians, and
attacks that cause harm to civilians or civilian objects that is excessive
in relation to the anticipated military advantage;

Take
all feasible precautionary measures during military operations to verify
that objectives to be attacked are not civilian but military, and take all
feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack to avoid
or minimize harm to civilians and civilian objects;

Take
all necessary steps to ensure that insurgent group members understand and
respect the obligation to protect civilians and captured combatants;

Refrain
from an attack when it becomes apparent the objective or target is not a
military one or where civilian loss would be disproportionate;

Give
special attention to the potential of civilian harm when operating in
residential areas;

Cease
any and all abductions and hostage taking of civilians. All civilians
currently in detention should be released;

Treat
all detainees from the multinational and Iraqi forces humanely. Prohibit
and prevent the execution, torture and other ill-treatment of detainees;
and

Discipline
or expel fighters or commanders who unlawfully detain or mistreat any
person in custody, or who target civilians or use indiscriminate or
disproportionate force that unnecessarily harms civilians.

Human Rights Watch calls on political, cultural and religious leaders in Iraq
and other countries who have expressed support for the insurgency to:

Publicly
condemn the abduction and hostage-taking of Iraqi and non-Iraqi civilians
by any insurgent group;

Publicly
condemn any insurgent group for targeted attacks against civilians and
civilian objects;

Publicly
condemn any insurgent group for indiscriminate attacks or attacks causing
disproportionate civilian casualties; and

Publicly
condemn any insurgent group for the mistreatment of those in its custody.

III. Insurgent Groups in Iraq

The word "insurgency" is used to describe the
many groups that have taken up arms against foreign forces in Iraq and the new Iraqi security
forces since April 2003. But these groups-it is unclear how many exist-are
varied and diverse, with shifting allegiances, configurations, funding sources,
strategies and aims. They share a common goal of ending the foreign military
presence in Iraq.
Many would like to replace the current Iraqi government, considered illegitimate
because it is backed by the United
States or because it is dominated by Shi`a
Muslims and Kurds. Most importantly for this report, the insurgent groups
appear to have different views on the conduct of hostilities and the legitimate
targets of military attack.

Certain insurgent groups have repeatedly
admitted, even boasted, about their role in abductions, summary executions,
attacks on religious or ethnic groups, and suicide bombings in populated areas.
Videos they produce of beheadings leave no doubt as to their responsibility for
the most serious crimes of war. Other groups have concentrated their attacks
more on military targets, though they still may be responsible for unlawful
attacks against civilians. Some insurgent groups have at times condemned attacks
on civilians, both Iraqi and foreign. This is not to suggest that insurgent
groups can be divided neatly according to their respect for international
humanitarian law. The fluid alliances, apparent sub-contracting and generally
clandestine nature of the insurgency make these distinctions difficult, if not
impossible, to make.

The insurgent groups covered in this report
are comprised predominantly of Sunni Arabs, who make up approximately 20
percent of Iraq's
population, and their activities are focused in the country's center, northwest
and west. Different members of the community, of course, have different views
of the insurgency. Some oppose the insurgency generally, or the way it is being
conducted, while others have not joined the insurgency but support its aims. Sunni
who criticize the insurgency or are seen as allied with the new government risk
themselves becoming a target of insurgent groups.[3]

Those who join insurgent groups apparently do
so for a variety of reasons: a desire to expel foreign forces from Iraq, fear of marginalization by a
Shi`a-dominated government after decades of Sunni control and a struggle over
strategic areas like Kirkuk.
Some view the insurgency as part of a global Islamic fight against the United States.
The members include former officials of the government and security forces who
lost their jobs after the Saddam Hussein government fell in 2003, as well as Ba`th
Party members. Others joined out of anger over war crimes committed by U.S.
forces or the Multi-National Force's perceived disrespect for Iraqi culture and
institutions. And some appear to have joined or participated in specific
attacks as a way to earn money.[4] As
head of Iraqi intelligence Maj. Gen. Muhammad `Abdullah al-Shahwani said in
January 2005, "people are fed up with no security, no electricity, people feel
they have to do something."[5]

In general, the insurgent groups operating in
Iraq
can be divided into three basic categories, although these categories overlap. First
are the groups dedicated to a pure Islamist philosophy. The three major groups
in this category are a Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam),
Ansar al-Sunna (Supporters of the Sunna) and al-Qaeda in Iraq, apparently led
by the Jordanian Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi, and also known as Jama`at al-Tawhid
wal-Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War) or al-Qaeda fi Bilad al-Rafidain (al-Qaeda
in Mesopotamia). Ansar al-Islam existed before the war[6] and
has apparently merged with Ansar al-Sunna which, like the other extreme
Islamist groups, was formed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.[7] The
groups' immediate goal is to end the foreign military presence in Iraq
and to topple the U.S.-backed Iraqi government. Driven by a puritanical
interpretation of Islam, they wish to establish an Islamic state governed by a
literal interpretation of shari`a
(Islamic law).[8] They
see the armed conflict in Iraq
as part of a global war against imperialism and military aggression by the United States
and corrupt, un-Islamic dictatorships in the Arab world. An undetermined number
of foreign fighters from countries like Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait,
Syria, Jordan and Yemen
have entered Iraq
to join the fight, and some sources say these foreign fighters are responsible
for the most deadly suicide bomb attacks.[9]

These groups are responsible for many of the
war crimes and crimes against humanity documented in this report. All three
groups mentioned above have repeatedly claimed responsibility for targeted
attacks on civilians and the executions of civilians and captured security
force personnel. They have broadcast videos of kidnap victims and executions. In
one example from August 2004, photos and a video appeared on a website
associated with Ansar al-Sunna that showed the execution of twelve Nepalese
cleaners and cooks, including one beheading. The group, which had previously
claimed responsibility for the abduction, executed the workers because they
"came from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve the Jews and the
Christians," a statement said.[10] Al-Qaeda
in Iraq
has also broadcast the beheadings of captured Iraqi soldiers and police, as
well as foreigners.

The second general category comprises
insurgent groups connected in some way to the former government under Saddam
Hussein or his Ba`th Party. According to Iraqi and foreign analysts, the
leaders are mostly former members of the Iraqi security or intelligence
structures who have organizational and military skills, and some of them may
have prepared for the insurgency before the 2003 invasion began.[11] Despite
coming from a secular party, some groups apparently cooperate with Islamist
groups, either by providing funding or participating in joint operations.[12] Some
of these groups have an apparent allegiance to Saddam Hussein, like al-`Awda
(The Return), Wahaj al-`Iraq (Flame of Iraq), Jaysh Mujahidi al-`Iraq
(Mujahadin of Iraq Army) and Saddam's Fedayin (Saddam's Martyrs), but others
seem to have distanced themselves from their former leader.[13] Some
of these groups have targeted civilians for abductions and executions.

The third category is what some analysts call
nationalist, or Sunni nationalist, comprised mostly of Sunni Arabs who for a
variety of reasons are fighting to expel foreign forces from Iraq, but are not as driven by
religious doctrine or former government ties. The insurgents in this category
are often local, regional or tribally based, who have taken up arms in a
specific area to, in their view, defend the population from aggression by
foreign troops. Others conduct actions in larger areas across Iraq's center and north in order to end the
presence of foreign military troops in Iraq. These include members of the
former government and military who were dismissed after the fall of the
government in 2003 or people who fear a Shi`a and Kurdish dominated government
in Iraq.
Others joined out of anger at violations by the U.S. and other coalition forces
that resulted in Iraqi civilian deaths and property destruction. Some of these
groups say they want an Iraq
guided by Islamic principles, but they do not share the vision of the Islamist
groups. Compared to the extreme Islamist groups, these groups generally appear
to limit their attacks to military targets, and some have condemned attacks on
civilians.

These three categories are not strictly
defined, as religious and nationalist goals blend, and some groups are not
easily categorized. The al-Jaysh al-Islami fi al-`Iraq
(Islamic Army in Iraq),
for instance, is a predominantly Sunni nationalist group with a strong Islamic
bent, but not along extreme puritanical lines.[14] It
has apparently avoided direct attacks on civilians with car bombs and suicide
bombs, but it has repeatedly claimed responsibility for abducting and executing
civilians.[15] Groups
like Jaysh Muhammad (Muhammad's Army) and al-Rayat al-Bayda (White Flags)
apparently want an Iraq
guided by Islamic law, but claim they are less willing to target Iraqi
civilians to achieve that goal.[16] Some
Ba`th-affiliated groups, although stemming from a secular party, have
cooperated with some of the extreme Islamist groups.

As noted, most insurgent groups are comprised
of Sunni Arabs, who held most of the important political, economic and social
positions in Iraq
during and before the Saddam Hussein government. But some Shi`a Muslims have
also joined these groups. Shi`a militias exist as well, most notably the
al-Mahdi Army run by the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which fought U.S. forces in Najaf in August
2004, and the Badr Organization of the SCIRI political party. Both groups have
been implicated in threats and violence against civilians, particularly revenge
attacks against officials from the previous Iraqi government or Ba`th Party. Because
they are not currently engaged in hostilities against multinational or Iraqi
forces, and are therefore not insurgent groups, they are not covered in this
report.[17]

Accurate information on the three general
insurgent categories outlined above is difficult to obtain. New insurgent
groups claim responsibility for armed attacks on a regular basis, and it is
impossible to verify if they are coordinated organizations or groups of
neighborhood friends. Some statements turn out to be false.[18]

According to senior Kurdish intelligence and
security officials interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the groups are often
organized in small cells with one leader, known as the emir (prince), who orders operations. The groups' over-all leaders
sometimes learn only later about an attack after the fact. New groups form and
dissolve with regularity, establishing new structures and alliances. And some
groups change their name to give the impression that more groups exist.[19] One
English-language article on the insurgency and mass media concluded that the
confusing names "may reveal a tactic designed to give the impression that the
Islamist elements are more numerous than the other factions."[20]

Similarly, it is not possible to determine
accurately the number of insurgents in Iraq. On November 13, 2003, head of
U.S. Central Command Gen. John Abizaid said the number of "actively armed"
people operating against U.S.
and coalition forces did not exceed 5,000 people.[21] Eleven
months later, American officials said the "hard-core resistance" numbered
between 8,000 and 12,000 people, and this number grew to more than 20,000 with
active sympathizers and covert accomplices.[22] In
January 2005, head of Iraqi intelligence Major General Muhammad `Abdullah
al-Shahwani claimed "the resistance is bigger than the U.S. military in Iraq." He put the number at
200,000, but that included sympathizers as well as active fighters.[23]

The number of foreign insurgents in Iraq is also impossible to obtain, with men
coming and going on a regular basis through Iraq's
porous border, mostly with Syria.[24] According
to a May 2005 estimate by the Brookings Institution in WashingtonD.C., Iraq had 1,000 foreign fighters (as
part of an insurgency with 16,000 members).[25] In
spring 2005, a coalition official in Baghdad
told the press that fewer than 5 percent of the killed or captured insurgents
have been non-Iraqi.[26] More
recently, Gen. Abizaid said the number of foreign fighters was going up: "I
believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months
ago," he told the U.S. Congress on June 23, although the overall strength of
the insurgency was "about the same."[27]

Lastly, criminal elements play an important
role. The absence of law and order, particularly in Baghdad and other cities, has created a
fertile environment for criminal gangs, some of which use Islamist or political
cover to mask their illegal intent. A large percentage of abductions, for example,
appear to be committed by criminal gangs looking for ransom cash.[28] Their
targets are sometimes foreigners, but the majority of victims are wealthy
Iraqis or those who work with foreign organizations or companies. According to
a study by the Iraqi Ministry of Health concluded in April 2005, criminal gangs
have abducted between 160 and 300 Iraqi doctors since April 2003, and killed
more than twenty-five. Nearly 1,000 doctors have fled the country, with an
average of thirty more following each month.[29]

According to some reports, insurgent groups
exploit Iraq's
poverty and high unemployment rates by paying Iraqis to stage attacks.[30] Detonating
an improvised explosive device pays up to $200, one U.S. security expert said, and
killing an American pays up to $1,000.[31] In
some cases, criminal groups have reportedly sold kidnap victims to insurgent
groups.

Attacks on Civilians

The number of civilians killed in Iraq
is unknown. The chaos of the conflict, the partial functioning of Iraqi
institutions and the unwillingness of the Multi-National Force to keep
statistics on civilians casualties make accurate numbers very difficult to
obtain.[32] In
addition, not all civilian deaths resulted from a violation of international
humanitarian law.

According to the U.K.-based Iraq Body Count,
the media reported 24,865 civilian deaths attributed to the fighting between
March 2003 and March 2005.[33] In
November 2004, a group of public health experts reported in the British medical
journal The Lancet that the mortality
rate in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion was 1.5 times higher than the rate
prior to the invasion (and 2.5 times higher when they included statistics from
al-Falluja, which incurred heavy fighting in April and November 2004). Based on
a door-to-door survey of 988 Iraqi households, the report estimated there were
98,000 "excess deaths" after the war began (again without counting al-Falluja).
From those "excess deaths," 24 percent resulted from violence (51 percent
including al-Falluja). The survey did not distinguish between military and
civilian deaths, and it did not address whether the deaths resulted from
violations of international humanitarian law.[34]

The Iraqi government has made a number of
pronouncements on civilian casualties attributed to insurgent attacks, but the
accuracy of their claims is impossible to confirm. In April 2005, Iraq's
Minister of Human Rights said insurgents had killed 6,000 civilians and wounded
16,000 over the previous two years.[35] Two
months later, Iraq's
Interior Minister said insurgents had killed 12,000 civilians in 2004 and the
first half of 2005, although government officials later said this figure was an
estimate.[36] The
Iraqi Interior Ministry later gave more precise figures, claiming that
insurgents had killed 8,175 Iraqi civilians and police officers between August
2004 and May 2005. The ministry did not provide a breakdown of civilians versus
police.[37]

The Iraqi government released updated figures
in July 2005, based on information from the ministries of health, interior and
defense. In the first six months of 2005, the government said, civilian deaths
from bombings, assassinations and armed clashes with insurgents totaled 1,594. During
this time insurgents killed 895 members of the Iraqi security forces (275
soldiers and 620 police).[38] Again,
not all civilian deaths reflect violations of the laws of war.

Purpose of Attacks on Civilians

Insurgent groups in Iraq claim they attack civilians to
achieve various aims, including pressuring foreign governments, discouraging
Iraqis from supporting the current government and avenging perceived wrongs. Based
on statements attributed to the groups, as well as media reports and the views
of insurgency experts in Iraq
and abroad, their attacks seem intended to accomplish the following goals:[39]

Punish individuals for collaboration.
Attacks on Iraqi translators, drivers, contractors and others who work with
foreign governments often are aimed at punishing them for their collaboration
and warning others to avoid such work. Some insurgent groups have broadcast
videos of executions, sometimes by beheading, on the Internet or on CDs that
are sold in markets, preceded by a "confession" and statement from the person
in custody. "I am telling anybody who wants to work with Americans to not work
with them," said Saif `AdnanKan`an,
who worked as a vehicle mechanic for the U.S.
military in Mosul,
before being beheaded by militants from Ansar al-Sunna.[40]

Punish groups for collaboration or claims
to political power. Attacks on Iraq's religious and ethnic
communities-Shi`a Muslims, Kurds and Christians-are collective punishment for
perceived cooperation with foreign forces and, in the case of Shi`a Muslims and
Kurds, their assertions of national power. On September 19, 2004, Ansar al-Sunna
announced that it had captured and killed three members of the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, and a video on the group's website showed three men getting
beheaded. "The puppet Kurdish groups... have pledged allegiance to the
crusaders and continue to fight Islam and its people," a statement said.[41]

Pressure foreign governments to leave Iraq.
The abductions and killings of foreign civilians often are accompanied by a
demand for the removal of a specific country's military from Iraq. In July 2004, for example,
the Islamic Army in Iraq
abducted the Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz, and then distributed a
video of him kneeling in front of three militants, who threatened to kill him
if the Philippine military did not withdraw from Iraq. The Philippine government
consented on July 12, and the insurgents released de la Cruz.[42]

Undermine the Iraqi government. Attacks
on Iraqi politicians and government officials send the message that Iraqis who
participate in the new government risk death and the lives of their families. Before
the January 30,
2005, elections, various groups warned Iraqis not to vote. Ansar
al-Sunna, the Islamic Army in Iraq
and al-Qaeda in Iraq
warned Iraqis not to participate in the January 30, 2005, Iraqi elections. "Voters
should know that even if they do not take part in the poll (but attend the
voting stations) they will not escape the hands of the mujahedeen, including
after the elections," an Ansar al-Sunna statement said.[43]

Instill fear in the civilian population.
Attacks also may aim to induce Iraqis who support the new government to lose
faith in the ability of the government and the Multi-National Force to provide
security.

Divert resources from military tasks.
Attacks on civilians and civilian objects force the Iraqi government and
Multi-National Force to divert resources to protect reconstruction projects,
infrastructure facilities, humanitarian organizations and other so-called "soft
targets."

Impede reconstruction. Attacks on
Iraqi and foreign reconstruction contractors, as well as on oil pipelines,
electrical grids and water stations, impede the country's reconstruction and
send a message that the new Iraqi authorities cannot provide for the public's
needs. According to the U.S military, up to 25 percent of the $18.4 billion it
allocated for reconstruction projects has gone to security.[44]

Provoke a heavy-handed response. Attacks
on civilians and civilian objects may goad multinational and Iraqi forces into
a heavy-handed response in which civilians are killed or civilian
infrastructure is destroyed. Such attacks might alienate the population and
help win insurgent groups sympathizers and recruits.

Gain the release of detainees. Insurgent
groups have used abducted civilians to demand the release of persons from
detention facilities in Iraq.
On September 16,
2004, al-Tawhid wal-Jihad abducted three civil engineers in Baghdad, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley from the U.S. and Kenneth Bigley from the U.K. Videos and
statements on the Internet threatened them with execution unless the U.S.
government released the Iraqi women it held in detention. Subsequent deadlines
passed and the group beheaded all three men. A video posted to a website before
the final execution showed Bigley pleading to British Prime Minister Tony Blair
to: "Please, please release the female prisoners that are held in Iraqi
prisons."[45]

Justifications for Attacks on Civilians

Insurgent groups in Iraq that target civilians seek to
justify their attacks by various arguments. Most of the arguments fall into one
of two categories: First, arguments that the victims in some way were
supporting the foreign military presence, and as such, were part of that
military force. Second, arguments that specific aspects of the armed conflict
in Iraq
justified an attack on civilians.

As discussed, international humanitarian law
prohibits at all times attacks directed against civilians. The applicability of
international humanitarian law is unrelated to the nature of the armed
conflict; that is, whether the war is just or unjust, lawful or unlawful,
international humanitarian law still applies.[46]

Among the justifications insurgent groups and
their supporters use to explain attacks on civilians are:

Employees of foreign governments or the
Multi-National Force have effectively joined the enemy. Any Iraqi
or foreigner who works with the U. S. or the Multi-National
Force, whether as a contractor, translator, driver, or cleaner, is
considered a collaborator because of the assistance he or she provides the
foreign forces, and therefore loses immunity as a civilian. According to a
former Iraqi general who joined the insurgency: "Every Iraqi or foreigner
who works with the coalition is a target. Ministries, mercenaries,
translators, businessmen, cooks or maids, it doesn't matter the degree of
collaboration. To sign a contract with the occupier is to sign your death
certificate."[47]

Officials of the Iraqi government serve
as agents of the foreign occupation. The various post-Saddam
Hussein governments-Iraq's
Interim Governing Council, the Iraqi Interim Government and the Iraqi
Transitional Government-are considered subservient to the U.S.-led
coalition. Viewed as agents of the foreign forces, they are deemed to have
lost their immunity as civilians. When asked about his organization's view
of the Iraqi Governing Council, for example, the Jaysh Muhammad spokesman
said: "Our position is clear-they are all spies, traitors, and agents for
the Americans."[48]
To the head of the pro-Saddam Hussein group Wahaj al-`Iraq, the Iraqi parliament and
government are "the institutions of the aggressor."[49]

By supporting the foreign forces
occupying Iraq,
Shi`a Muslims, Kurds and Christians are traitors and spies. Insurgent
groups that attack Shi`a, Kurdish or Christian civilians say these groups
are legitimate targets because they collaborated with the United States to
overthrow Saddam Hussein and to occupy Iraq. "The American forces and
their intelligence systems have found a safe haven and refuge amongst
their brethren the grandchildren of monkeys and swine in Iraq," one group said when claiming
responsibility for the August 2003 attacks on five churches in Mosul and Baghdad.[50]
Because the Kurdish peshmerga fought alongside U.S. forces in 2003 and some
Shi`a militias, like the Iran-trained Badr Brigade (now Badr
Organization), are powerful in the current Iraqi security force, all Kurds
and Shi`a are considered fair targets. According to groups like Ansar
al-Sunna and al-Qaeda in Iraq,
Kurds and the Shi`a are "helping the Crusaders and Jews."[51]

All westerners in Iraq are part of the foreign
occupation. Regardless of their role in Iraq, be it as construction
contractors, journalists or humanitarian aid workers, all foreigners are
considered elements or potential elements of a foreign occupation. According
to a statement by a group called the Assadullah Brigades (Lion of God
Brigades), for example, "the mujahid
[holy fighter] is entitled to capture any infidel that enters Iraq,
whether he works for a construction company or in any other job, because
he could be a warrior, and the mujahid
has the right to kill him or take him as a prisoner."[52]
According to the group, "any foreigner working here should be killed or
abducted."[53]

The ends justify the means. Attacks
against all targets, military and civilian, are necessary and permitted to
achieve the ultimate end: driving foreign occupiers from Iraq. "The killing of infidels
by any method including martyrdom [suicide] operations has been sanctified
by many scholars even if it means killing innocent Muslims. This legality
has been agreed upon ... so as not to disrupt jihad," Abu Mus`ab
al-Zarqawi purportedly said on an audio tape posted to the Internet. He
continued: "The shedding of Muslim blood ... is allowed in order to avoid
the greater evil of disrupting jihad."[54]

A sign in al-Falluja from May 2003
reveals anger at the United
States.

2005 Fred
Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

A more powerful enemy. The United States
and its coalition partners are better financed and equipped than insurgent
groups, with overpowering technology and firepower. Against such an
adversary, all means of attack are necessary, including attacks on
civilians and other "soft targets."

Double standards on the applicability
of international law. Some insurgents argue that armed opposition
groups should not be expected to respect legal standards when the other
side brazenly disregards the law. They assert that the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq
was a violation of international law, and that excessive and
indiscriminate force during and after the invasion has killed tens of
thousands of Iraqi civilians.

Reprisals. Some attacks against
civilians are justified as reprisals for alleged abuses or unlawful
attacks by Iraqi or multinational forces. This was a justification given
for the May 2004 beheading of American businessman Nicholas Berg, as
recorded in a video entitled "Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi Shown Slaughtering an
American." "For the mothers and wives of American soldiers, we tell you
that we offered the U.S.
administration to exchange this hostage with some of the detainees in Abu
Ghraib and they refused," one of five men wearing headscarves and black
masks read from a statement. "So we tell you that the dignity of the
Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by
blood and souls."[55]

International humanitarian law does not
apply to insurgent groups in Iraq. Some who defend
the conduct of insurgent groups in Iraq claim the groups are not
bound by the laws of war because they did not sign the Geneva Conventions
or otherwise make legal commitments to abide by international law. They say
that insurgent groups cannot be bound by international norms they did not
help shape or pledge to respect.

Insurgents only recognize Islamic law,
which permits all attacks against an occupying force. Some groups
cite the Qu'ran or Islamic scholars to justify the killing of Muslim and
non-Muslim civilians in a war against occupying militaries. "Killing
Muslims who are serving as human shields [for U.S. forces] is allowed by the
sharia," Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi said in a tape posted to the Internet on May 18, 2005,
backing the argument with statements from several Muslim clergymen. He
also said that "it is legitimate to shoot all infidels with all kinds of
arms that we have."[56]

Executions are carried out according to
law. At least one insurgent group has justified an execution
because it was carried out after a legal review. On July 21, 2005,
al-Qaeda in Iraq
abducted two Algerian diplomats, `Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi, and
executed them six days later. "The judicial court of the Organization of al-Qaeda in Iraq
has sentenced to death the diplomatic envoys of the apostate Algerian
government," a statement posted to the Internet said.[57]

None of the justifications given above is
defensible under international law. The justifications for attacking specific
groups of people misread or misapply the definition of a civilian as it applies
under the laws of war. The arguments that international law does not apply are
contrary to long-accepted understandings of the applicability of the laws of
war.

International humanitarian law provides that
in all armed conflicts, whether during armed conflicts between states,
occupations or civil wars, the parties must at all times distinguish between
civilians and combatants. According to the principle of civilian immunity,
attacks may only be directed against combatants, and never civilians.[58]

Civilians are defined as persons who are not
members of the armed forces.[59] A
civilian is protected against attack unless and for such time as he or she
takes a direct part in hostilities.[60] In
practice a civilian would temporarily lose immunity by, for instance, picking
up a weapon and engaging in fighting, loading ammunition during a battle or
spotting targets for artillery. Civilians involved in the planning of military
operations or who are giving orders to military forces likewise may be subject
to attack. As described in the ICRC Commentary to Protocol I, direct
participation in hostilities "implies a direct causal relationship between the
activity engaged in and the harm done to the enemy at the time and the place
where the activity takes place."[61] Thus,
while a worker in a munitions factory may be assisting the war effort, the
absence of direct participation in
hostilities means the person cannot be subject to attack (the munitions factory
is a legitimate target, however, and the worker bears the risks of being
present there).

Although there are gray areas regarding
whether certain conduct constitutes "direct participation in hostilities," the
immunity of the civilians whose cases are documented in this report is clear. Ordinary
civilians regardless of ethnic group or sect, government officials not directly
involved in the war effort, Iraqi and foreign staff performing non-combat jobs
for foreign governments, humanitarian aid workers and journalists are all
protected from direct attack by the laws of war.

The prohibition on intentional attacks
against civilians is absolute. Where there is doubt as to whether a person is a
civilian or a member of the military, that person must be considered a
civilian.[62] Reprisal
attacks against civilians and captured combatants are prohibited.[63] It
is also unlawful to carry out sentences, including executions, of any person
except by a regularly constituted court meeting international fair trial standards.[64]

It is no justification to claim that the
attacked civilian was part of a larger group that has members involved in the
hostilities. Thus Kurdish civilians are not lawful targets because the
peshmerga ismade up of Kurdish
fighters. Likewise, foreign civilians
do not become lawful targets because of the presence of foreign soldiers in Iraq.

The broader justifications for attacks on
civilians based on the perceived irrelevance or unfairness of international
humanitarian law are a blanket disavowal of international law. Under
international humanitarian law, the fighting that has persisted in Iraq
since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 meets the requirements for an armed
conflict. The classification of that armed conflict, whether as an
international armed conflict or as a non-international (internal) armed
conflict, is of limited importance for issues pertaining to direct attacks on
civilians: such attacks are illegal during an international armed conflict or
occupation as per the 1949 Geneva Conventions, or during an internal conflict
as a matter of article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and
customary international humanitarian law.

While armed opposition groups such as
insurgents in Iraq
are not parties to the Geneva Conventions, it has long been recognized that
such groups are bound by common article 3 and customary international
humanitarian law.[65] Recourse
to competing principles such as "the ends justifies the means" or other bodies
of law, such as interpretations of Islamic law, have no legal bearing on
whether or not international humanitarian law has been violated. As the
preamble to Protocol I states, the provisions of the Geneva Conventions "must
be fully applied in all circumstances to all persons who are protected by those
instruments, without any adverse distinction based on the nature or origin of
the armed conflict or on the causes espoused by or attributed to the Parties to
the conflicts."[66] Moreover,
a failure by one party to a conflict to respect the laws of war does not
relieve the other of its obligation to respect those laws. That obligation is
absolute, not premised on reciprocity.[67]

The rejection of international humanitarian
law has moral, political and legal consequences. Most importantly, the
unwillingness to adequately distinguish between civilians and combatants is
having a devastating impact on the civilians of Iraq. Serious violations of the
laws of war are considered war crimes; under international law, persons who
commit, order, or condone war crimes or crimes against humanity are criminally
responsible individually for their actions. In certain circumstances,
international humanitarian law also holds commanders criminally liable for war
crimes committed by their subordinates. There are two forms of command responsibility:
direct responsibility for orders that are unlawful, such as when a military
commander authorizes or orders intentional attacks on civilians; and imputed
responsibility, when a superior failed to prevent or punish crimes committed by
a subordinate acting on his own initiative when the superior knew or should
have known of the subordinate's plans.

War crimes that are grave breaches of the
Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity are crimes of universal
jurisdiction, meaning that they can be prosecuted anywhere in the world. Moreover,
international crimes committed since July 2002 may be prosecuted by the
International Criminal Court in The
Hague if the state involved is unwilling or unable to
prosecute the offense. Because there is no statute of limitation for war
crimes, those responsible may be arrested and tried at any time and in any
place.[68]

Statements by Insurgent Groups

Various armed groups, notably Ansar al-Sunna,
al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic Army in Iraq, have repeatedly claimed credit
in videos and written statement for assassinations, executions and bomb attacks
that unlawfully killed civilians.[69] Only
on rare occasions has an armed group condemned such attacks. When such
condemnations occur, they are likely to express disapproval with attacks on
"innocent Muslims" or Iraqi citizens, including soldiers and police, rather
than a condemnation based on the legal obligation to distinguish between
civilians and combatants. The implied message often is to redirect attacks from
Iraqis to foreigners, whether soldiers or civilians, rather than a desire to
protect all civilians from attack.

A statement from Jaysh Muhammad, for example,
a Sunni group with a strong Islamist bent, was as much an affirmation of
certain unlawful attacks as it was a condemnation of others. "A Muslim must not
kill a Muslim, no matter what," a spokesman said in an interview, as he
denounced the bombings at Shi`a shrines and attacks on police. At the same
time, he accepted kidnapping those who "cooperate with the occupation."
"Kidnapping is an obligation," he said. "It is not prohibited by religion, if
it is done to foreigners who cooperate with the occupation."[70]

In a statement by the Abu-Hafs al-Masri
Brigades, one of three groups that claimed responsibility for the U.N. bombing
of August 19,
2003, the group said it was against "any action that harms the
interest of the Iraqi people, such as targeting the Abu Ghraib Prison and
blowing up the principal water main in Baghdad because it is not allowable to
harm Muslims."[71] The
statement did not mention that eight of the twenty-two people who died in the
U.N. bombing were Iraqis (see chapter VIII of this report, "Attacks on
Humanitarian Organizations and the U.N.").

In one of the very few cases that al-Qaeda in
Iraq
condemned an attack on civilians, it commented only on the need to protect
innocent Muslims. "We changed the plans for a number of decisive operations
against the enemy because of the presence of a Muslim who would have been
killed by the explosions, and we canceled martyrdom [suicide] operations out of
concern for the blood of Muslim passers-by," it said.[72]

On January 27, 2005, three days before Iraq's
elections, an apparent umbrella organization of Sunni nationalist groups called
the Political Bureau of the Islamic Front of the Iraqi Resistance,[73]
announced that it condemned the elections but had ordered its fighters not to
attack polling stations or Iraqi citizens. "It is not our policy to provoke
sedition that will allow the blood of our citizens to be shed by attacking the
polling stations and shedding the blood of innocent Iraqis, especially as many
of our compatriots have failed to understand the reality of this issue," the
statement reportedly said. "Our wish to spare the lives of our Iraqi people extends
to all our citizens of all religious persuasions and ethnic affiliations."[74]

A month later the Islamic Front of the Iraqi
Resistance issued another statement that extended its condemnation to attacks
on all civilians. "We prohibit targeting civilians, slaying hostages and
spilling the blood of Iraqis whether civilians or members of police and
national guard forces, under any pretext," the statement said, adding that its
fighters should not undertake actions in cities, where civilians could be hurt.
Regarding non-Iraqis, the Front said its members were not allowed to target
civilian foreigners, such as reporters, drivers and relief workers, or Iraqi
infrastructure facilities, like oil pipelines and electrical grids. It called
on its members not to cooperate with any insurgent group that attacked Iraqis
or civilians in general.[75]

Likewise, in a statement posted on its
website in June 2005, the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance, an alliance of Iraqi
political parties and groups based abroad, denounced the targeting of civilian
objects and foreign civilians:

Schools, churches, mosques and other civilian
places have never been the target of the Iraqi resistance. Besides, we have to
be very critical and careful about any kidnapping or killing process of a
foreigner [sic] worker in Iraq.
The resistance has no benefit in attacking people like Margaret Hassan,[76] two Simonas[77] or others. These actions are meant
to discredit the legal resistance of our people.[78]

In an interview published in June 2005, the
head of a pro-Saddam group claimed his force did not target civilians, and he
did not distinguish between Iraqis and foreigners. "We strike only at military
targets," said Shaikh Majid al-Qa'ud, secretary general of Wahaj al-`Iraq. "It
is others who slaughter women, old people and children."[79]

Statements by Sunni Religious Groups

Most Sunni institutions and religious bodies
view the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq
as an occupation, and they support the insurgents' military actions as a
legitimate response. Some have condemned attacks on civilians, particularly the
large-scale attacks on Shi`a shrines and Christian churches, but their
condemnations are sometimes limited and suggest that attacks on civilians are
warranted in certain circumstances.

The most influential Sunni religious authority
in Iraq
is the Hayat 'Ulama al-Muslimin (Association of Muslim Scholars), which was
created in April 2003, after the fall of the Saddam Hussein government. Directed
by Shaikh Harith al-Dhari, the Association undertakes religious, political,
social and economic activities, from organizing the protection of mosques and
the work of imams to caring for the families of Iraqis killed by U.S. forces. It
has been an outspoken critic of the U.S.-led military presence and called on
the Sunni to boycott the January 30, 2005, elections.

At the same time, the Association has
condemned the Jordanian Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi and some of the attacks for which
he claimed responsibility. "We have nothing to do with the terrorist
al-Zarqawi," an Association spokesman said in February 2005. "He is a foreigner
and an enemy of Iraq.
Our liberation struggle against the occupation is a completely different matter
from his barbarous terrorism."[80]

The Association has condemned some
hostage-taking and attacks on civilians, but it has been accepting of other
practices that violate the laws of war. For example, at least one spokesman
said it was acceptable to kidnap-but not kill-"collaborators." "Iraq is an
occupied country and Iraqis are entitled to resist this ugly occupation no matter
what the meansIt makes sense then to target collaborators," Association
spokesman Muthana Harith al-Dhari said in September 2004. He added, "Kidnapping
the collaborators is lawful when it comes to warfare. They are deemed as troops
fighting alongside the occupation forces."

As an example, al-Dhari mentioned the case of
twelve Nepalese workers, abducted and executed by Ansar al-Sunna in August
2004. "There was nothing wrong in kidnapping the twelve Nepalese as they used
to work for the occupation forces as bodyguards or supply drivers in return for
mind-boggling salaries," he said. "But we are totally against killing them. They
are prisoners of war and shouldn't be killed."[81]

The Association had condemned the killing
when it took place. "We are against killing hostages, particularly if it has
been a group execution," Shaikh al-Dhari said. "Those twelve Nepalese hostages
are simple people. They might have been deceived to serve the occupation
forces."[82] That
same month, when insurgents bombed five Christian churches in Baghdad
and Mosul, the
Association said the attacks were "totally remote from any religious or
humanitarian norms."[83]

On September 12, 2004, the Association called for
the release of two Italian humanitarian workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta,
who had been abducted one week before. "The two Italians were doing a
humanitarian job and don't have any links to the occupation," a spokesman said.[84] The
two women were eventually released.

In January 2005, the Association called upon
all armed groups to release any hostages they held on the Eid al-Adha feast
(Feast of Sacrifice)-a major Islamic holiday. "On the occasion of `Eid al-Adha,
the Association of Muslim Scholars appeals on parties who hold hostages to free
them as an expression of goodwill," a spokesman said. "Our religion does not
accept such acts that lead to killings and humiliation."[85]

In February 2005, the Association called for
the release of the abducted Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, saying "she was
doing a humanitarian job in Iraq
and has nothing to do with the occupation forces."[86] A
group called the Islamic Jihad Organization responded that it would kill the
woman if Italian forces did not leave Iraq. "We call upon our brothers in
the Association of Muslim Scholars to be careful in their call to release the
Italian POW," a statement posted on the Internet said. "We are still
investigating the POW and the judicial committee in the organization will take
its decision on that soon."[87] Sgrena's
captors released her on March 4 (see chapter IX of this report, "Attacks on
Media").

In contrast to these statements, another
large Sunni group has condoned certain attacks. Fakhri al-Qaisi, a prominent
Sunni cleric who heads a Salafi group in Iraq[88] and
is part of the Higher Council for al-Da`wa, Guidance and Fatwa, told a French
journalist that the killing of CARE director Margaret Hassan in November 2004
(see chapter VIII of this report, "Attacks on Humanitarian Organizations and
the U.N.") was justified because a U.S. Marine had recently killed a wounded
and unarmed insurgent in an al-Falluja mosque.[89] "As
the Americans wage a war of extermination against us, the resistance also will
kill everyone, women, old men and infants," he reportedly said. "The Americans
left us no other choice but violence."[90]

A leading Sunni cleric in al-Falluja has
sought to differentiate between "honest" and "dishonest" insurgents. "Honest
resistance is a legitimate right against the occupation all over the world. It
is not governed by the ideas of small groups of people," Shaikh `Abdullah
al-Janabi explained. "If they think beheading civilians is a means of pressure
over the occupation, then they don't understand the concept of honest and true
resistance, which targets the American and British occupation." He added, "If
there is someone called Zarqawi, I am not grateful for his attack on our
policemen."[91]

IV. Attacks on Ethnic and Religious Groups

A primary target of some insurgent groups has been the Shi`a
Muslim, Kurdish and Christian communities in Iraq. They have attacked civilians
from these communities with suicide bombs, car bombs and roadside bombs and
have committed murders and summary executions. Massive bombs have killed
hundreds of civilians in mosques and churches, at funerals and in markets.

Some armed groups have justified their attacks with the
argument that these communities collaborated with the U.S.-led coalition to
overthrow the Saddam Hussein government, to occupy Iraq and to dominate the new Iraqi
government. The Kurdish force in particular, the peshmerga, fought alongside U.S. forces in Iraq's
north in 2003, and has remained a close ally of the United States. Shi`a are dominating
the current Iraqi government-a position of power previously held by the
minority Sunni population during and before Saddam Hussein-and the militia of a
principal Shi`a political party, the Iran-trained Badr Organization, is
powerful in Iraq's new police force.

Christians have repeatedly come under attack because they
are viewed as supportive of the U.S.
invasion, and many have taken jobs with the occupation authorities and various U.S.
government entities. Insurgents may also have attacked Iraqi Christians as
surrogates for the Christian West.

The attacks may also be motivated by the historical
animosities between these ethnic and religious groups, and their struggle for
power in post-Saddam Iraq.

Attacks on Shi`a Muslims

In terms of casualties, the religious or ethnic group most
targeted by insurgents in Iraq
is Shi`a Muslims, who comprise roughly 60 percent of Iraq's population. Since 2003, some
insurgent groups have repeatedly targeted Shi`a religious sites packed with
civilians, senior clerics and political leaders, as well as neighborhoods where
Shi`a Muslims live.

As stated above, the attacks are primarily motivated by a
belief that Shi`a political and religious groups welcomed and cooperated with
the U.S.
invasion to overthrow the Iraqi government, long dominated by Sunni Arabs. In
addition, the Shi`a are dominating the current Iraqi government and security
forces, provoking concerns that Sunnis will be marginalized in the new Iraq. To
the extreme Islamist groups like al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has claimed
responsibility for some of the most deadly attacks, Shi`a Muslims are apostates
and heretics who have betrayed Islam.

On September 14, 2005, for example, al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed
responsibility for a string of car bombs and suicide bomb attacks across Shi`a
areas of Baghdad that killed nearly 150 people. In one case, a bomber lured men
around his car with promises of work before blowing himself up and killing at
least 112.[92]

In an audiotape posted to the Internet that day, a voice
believed to belong to Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi declared "all-out war" on Iraq's
Shi`a population. "The al-Qaeda Organization in the Land of Two Rivers is
declaring all-out war on the Rafidha [a pejorative term for Shi`a], wherever
they are in Iraq,"
the voice said. He continued: "Any religious group that wants to be safe from
the blows of the mujahedeen must (disavow) the government of Ja`fari and its
crimes. Otherwise it will suffer the same fate as that of the crusaders."[93]

Iraqi and U.S.
officials have blamed many other attacks on al-Qaeda in Iraq. By attacking Shi`a leaders
and religious sites, these officials and many analysts believe, al-Zarqawi
hopes to spark a civil war between Shi`a and Sunni Muslims.[94]

The first major attack on a Shi`a site occurred on August 29, 2003,
when two massive car bombs exploded outside the Shrine of Imam `Ali Mosque in
al-Najaf, the most holy Shi`a Muslim site. More than eighty-five people died,
including the influential Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, head of SCIRI, who
was being driven from the mosque after Friday prayers. "There was a huge blast,
and I was flung to the ground," one witness said. "I saw parts of bodies all
around me. There was dust everywhere."[95]

According to the Iraqi police, the attackers planted 1,550
pounds of explosives in two cars.[96] The
police arrested four men, two Iraqis and two Saudis, all four with connections
to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, an Iraqi police official said.[97]

It remains unclear who staged the attack. Sayyid `Abd al-`Aziz
al-Hakim, the brother of Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim and his successor as head of
SCIRI, blamedelements loyal to
Saddam Hussein.[98] The CPA
and U.S.
military said it had intelligence and other evidence linking al-Zarqawi to the
bombing, but they did not provide details.[99]
On January 15,
2005, Iraqi authorities arrested Sami Muhammad `Ali Sa`id al-Jaaf,
also known as Abu `Umar al-Kurdi, who they claimed was a top lieutenant in
al-Qaeda. According to an Iraqi government statement, al-Jaaf confessed to
preparing thirty-two car bombs, including the bomb in al-Najaf that killed
Ayatollah al-Hakim.[100]

For the past two years, deadly attacks have marred the Shi`a
holy day of `Ashura', which marks the seventh century death in battle of the
Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussain. On March 2, 2004, bombs at Shi`a shrines in Karbala and Baghdad
killed more than 181 people and wounded 573. On February 18 and 19, 2005,
despite heightened security, attacks during the holy day in Baghdad killed more than seventy people.

In the 2004 attacks, coordinated blasts with suicide bombers
and planted explosives hit shrines in Karbala
and Baghdad as pilgrims from Iraq and abroad converged for the
holy day. In Karbala,
five bombs detonated after 10 a.m. near two important shrines. "We were
standing there when we heard an explosion," one witness said. "We saw flesh,
arms, legs, more flesh. Then the ambulance came."[101]
Around the same time, three suicide bombers detonated their explosives in and
around the al-Kadhimiyya shrine in Baghdad
killing fifty-eight. A fourth bomber was captured after his explosives failed
to detonate.[102]

No one claimed responsibility for these attacks. U.S.
officials and Iraqi leaders blamed al-Zarqawi, but they did not provide
evidence to support the claim.[103]

One year later, in Baghdad,
a suicide bomber detonated explosives inside the al-Kadhimiyya shrine as
worshippers knelt in prayer, killing seventeen people. Shortly thereafter, two
suicide bombers exploded at the `Ali al-Bayya' Mosque in western Baghdad as people were
leaving the Friday prayers.In a
third incident, a suicide bomber killed at least two more Shi`a Muslims.[104]

Some Sunni Arab leaders condemned the attacks, including the
Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars. "The shedding of the blood of any Iraqi
citizen during this delicate stage will contribute to achieving the
occupation's goals," an Association spokesman said at a press conference called
to condemn the attacks. "Namely, igniting sectarian sedition among the
components of the Iraqi people to facilitate or guarantee their stay in Iraq."[105]

Three weeks later, on March 10, 2005, an explosion ripped through
the funeral of a respected Shi`a professor in Mosul, killing more than forty-seven people,
some of them Kurds and Turkomans. According to witnesses, a suicide bomber
detonated himself in a hall next to the al-Sadrin Mosque in the al-Ta'mim
neighborhood where the funeral service was being held. "As we were inside the
mosque, we saw a ball of fire and heard a huge explosion," one witness said. "After
that blood and pieces of flesh were scattered around the place."[106]

Insurgent groups also have targeted individuals active in
Shi`a parties and organizations. On February 9, 2005, gunmen shot and killed `Abd
al-Hussain Khaz`al, aged forty, who was an official of the al-Da`wa political
party, a spokesman of the Basra city council, director of a local newspaper and
a journalist for the U.S.-funded al-Hurra Television. Witnesses told the press
that gunmen converged on Khaz`al as he sat in his pickup with his
three-year-old son Muhammad outside their Basra
home, shooting at them at least thirteen times.[107]
Al-Hurra ("The Free") began operations in early 2004 with U.S. government funds in an attempt
to counter the Arabic-language television stations al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya.

According to Agence France-Presse, a group called the Imam
al-Hassan al-Basri Brigades[108]claimed responsibility for the killing
in a statement on an Islamic website. The previously unknown group said it had
"liquidated the apostate agent." They accused Khaz`al of being a member of the
"criminal traitor Badr Brigade," the militia of SCIRI. "The slain agent will
not be the last, but this is one of the filthy heads of agents to be cut by the
mujahedeen," the statement reportedly
said.[109]

In May 2005, unknown armed men shot and killed at least
three Shi`a clerics in and around Baghdad.
On May 15, gunmen killed Qassim al-Gharawi, an aide to Grand Ayatollah `Ali
al-Sistani, and his nephew in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad. Two days later, gunmen killed the
cleric Muwaffaq al-Hussaini. On May 18, gunmen killed the cleric Muhammad Tahir
al-`Allaq while he drove to the city of Kut.[110]

Attacks on Shi`a neighborhoods have continued unabated since
the current Iraqi government was named on April 28, 2005. On May 23, for
example, unknown insurgents carried out three major car bomb attacks in Shi`a
areas, killing at least thirty-three people and wounding 120. According to
press reports, the deadliest attack came from a pair of suicide car bombers who
tried to kill a local Shi`a leader in the northern city of Tal
Afar, fifty miles west of Mosul,
but instead killed at least fifteen people and wounded twenty. Other bombs
exploded that day at a popular Baghdad
restaurant near the predominantly Shi`a SadrCity in Baghdad and outside a Shi`a mosque in
Mahmudiyya.[111]

On the evening of June 10, a car bomb exploded near the Nur
marketplace in the al-Shula district of Baghdad, a predominantly Shi`a area,
killing ten people and wounding twenty-eight. Seven men, three women and a
child reportedly died in the blast. No one claimed responsibility for the
attack.[112]

Attacks on Kurds

Since April 2003, various insurgent groups have attacked
Kurdish civilians and civilian sites in the north, and sometimes in Baghdad. Some insurgent
groups have used improvised explosive devices (roadside bombs), car bombs and
gunmen to kill Kurdish politicians and journalists. On February 1, 2004, twin suicide
bombs exploded at the Arbil offices of the two main Kurdish political parties,
the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK), killing ninety-nine people who had gathered to mark the first day of Eid
al-Adha.

Iraqi governments in Baghdad
have long persecuted the Kurds with discriminatory laws, forced displacement
and the genocidal Anfal campaign in 1988, which resulted in an estimated
100,000 Kurdish deaths.[113] Comprising
15-20 percent of the population, Iraqi Kurds are mostly pushing for an
autonomous federal state in the three northern
provinces they control, if not independence outright.
The main political forces welcomed the U.S.-led invasion, and have cooperated
closely with the U.S.
government in the hope they will achieve their goals.

Various armed groups make no secret of their desire to
attack Kurds, whom they consider collaborators with the United States
and the "allies of Jews and Christians."[114]
Most prominent among them is Ansar al-Islam fi Kurdistan (Supporters of Islam
in Kurdistan), a Sunni Kurdish group espousing
an ultra-orthodox Islamic ideology that began fighting the two principal
secular Kurdish parties in 2001.[115]U.S. forces destroyed the
group's bases in the villages of Biyara and Tawila near the Iranian border
during the 2003 air war on Iraq,
killing some members and forcing others to disperse. But senior Kurdish police
and intelligence officials told Human Rights Watch that Ansar al-Islam
subsequently either merged, or is cooperating closely, with Ansar al-Sunna,
which has also claimed responsibility for many attacks on Kurdish civilians, as
well as the executions of captured security forces. Most attacks on Kurds in
the past two years have been attributed to Ansar al-Sunna rather than Ansar
al-Islam.

In the eyes of these groups, the secular Kurdish parties are
allies of the enemy forces that occupied Iraq,
and they are now trying to secede from Iraq. The Kurdish peshmerga fought
alongside the U.S. from
northern positions in 2003, and the two main Kurdish political parties are
close allies of the United
States. While peshmerga fighters are part of
an armed force and are therefore legitimate military targets, attacks against
Kurdish civilians, including politicians, are illegal under international
humanitarian law. Civilians may not be attacked because their ethnic group or
leadership is considered allied with the enemy force.

The most deadly attack came on February 1, 2004, when two suicide
bombers detonated their explosives almost simultaneously at the Arbil offices
of the two main Kurdish political parties-the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Although both of the parties
have security forces, neither of the offices targeted served a military
function. In addition, the attacks were timed to inflict the most possible
damage on civilians.

The bombs exploded during celebrations of the Muslim
festival Eid al-Adha, when local politicians and party members traditionally
receive the citizens of Arbil to wish each other "Eid Mubarak"-Happy Eid. A
video of the PUK event viewed by Human Rights Watch showed civilian party
officials shaking hands with local citizens in a crowded auditorium until a
bomb exploded and chaos ensued. In total, the two bombs killed ninety-nine people
and wounded 246.

One of the wounded was Zanyar Muhammad Qadir, a KDP member
and civilian employee in the party's Organizations Unit, whose left leg was
broken (see photos). He told Human Rights Watch what happened that day:

So many people came because the party members cannot go
to see all the people, so they come here. Politicians and party members were
also in the hall. They were standing to receive people. They made a plan to see
people, for example, the lawyers at 10:00 a.m., the engineers at 10:30, and so
on. This was a little different from the other Eids. Everyone was happy that
day. It wasn't like previous Eids. We received many people. At the last moment,
a friend asked me what time it was. I said 10:30 a.m. Harry Schute, the former
head of U.S.
forces in the north, came. He was standing near Sami Abdul Rahman, the deputy
prime minister, who was killed with his son. I gave Schute my place. When he
left, Sami Abdul Rahman was still standing. I was talking to him. At that
moment, a sergeant in the security called to me. I heard a very loud sound, and
I saw a huge fire around the hall. I fell to the ground. I felt something hit
my shoulder, and when I looked I saw Sami Abdul Rahman. He was alive but
breathing his last breaths. The ceiling collapsed on our heads. I saw three
bodies in front of me burning. Sami Abdul Rahman's bodyguards carried him out. I
tried to stand but I couldn't. I tried to walk but I saw pieces of flesh on the
floor. I saw that and cried, but I couldn't hear my voice. I couldn't hear
anything for four or five minutes. The bodies were still burning. I looked at
the people. One of them was Shawkat Shaikh Yazdin, a minister for cabinet
affairs. Next to him was the chief Mamosta Sa`ad `Abdullah, who had been
minister of agriculture, but at the time was head of the KDP's Second Branch in
Arbil. On the other side was Akram Mantiq, who was the governor of Arbil. One
of their heads was blown apart. I looked around and I saw all of my friends who
had died, and I couldn't believe it-as if it was play. I cried and cried, but
after a while a friend came and carried me out.[116]

Qadir was taken to the hospital, which was filling with the
wounded and dead. Fifty-one people died in the KDP attack, the party said, and
121 were wounded. The doctors were overwhelmed. He was forced to bandage his
leg by himself, using a rifle piece as a splint. Doctors eventually found two
pieces of shrapnel in his leg and eight more in other parts of his body. After
five operations, the leg is slowly healing, although he is awaiting a bone
graft.

The PUK office suffered similar devastation and death, with
forty-eight people killed and 125 wounded. `Adnan Mufti, a Politburo member of
the PUK and the party's head in Arbil, suffered a broken leg and took shrapnel
to the face and neck. He told Human Rights Watch how the bomb exploded, killing
four of his bodyguards, twelve members of the PUK leadership in Arbil and
dozens of civilians:

Nobody thought something like that could happen. We
feared only a car bomb outside, and we took precautions for that. But the
technical skill of those terrorists was high. It was the first time, I think,
that there was a suicide bombing in IraqJust before 11:00 a.m., I
heard a huge explosion and I saw fire. It was like thunder. I lost my mind for
a few seconds and then I found myself on the ground. I couldn't turn back to
look. My leg was broken. I tried to straighten my leg but I didn't know what
had happened to my head. I saw bodies on the ground, but I didn't know if they
were dead or alive. Friends took me to the hospital. I was bleeding from the
mouth. I thought I had internal bleeding, but I found out later that it was
from shrapnel in my mouth and neck. One piece near my mouth went through and
broke two teeth. One tooth broke and the piece embedded itself in my tongue. The
shrapnel in my neck, one millimeter from my vocal cords, went in one side and
out the other. For about two months, I could barely speak. In my right leg were
five or six pieces of shrapnel. Three of them are still there. I've had two
operations on my leg. I also lost my hearing in the right ear but I'm okay now
after an operation.[117]

In a statement posted to a website on February 4, Ansar
al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the twin attacks. "Two of our martyrs, may
God accept them, raided two dens of the devils in the city of Arbil
in north Iraq,"
the statement said. "And with this, our happiness over Eid al-Adha merged with
our happiness in striking the allies of Jews and Christians."[118]

Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for other attacks in
Arbil in 2004 and 2005, usually against Kurdish political figures and police. On
June 26, 2004,
a car bomb targeted the Kurdish Minister of Culture, Mahmud Muhammad, lightly
wounding the minister, killing the owner of a garage across the street, and
wounding seventeen others.[119] In an
interview with Kurdistan TV that same day, Muhammad said the bomb exploded as
he was outside his home on the way to work. "Regrettably some of the bodyguards
were injured," he said. "I am fine."[120]

-Human
Rights Watch interviewed two witnesses to the attack. According to Sulaiman
Siddiq, who owns a metal shop next to the garage across the street, the bomb
detonated around 8:10 a.m. "It was a very big explosion," he said. "All the
glass in my shop broke. I saw a fire and an old man, a mechanic, near my shop
was killed.[121]

The victim was Sayyid `Ali Nuri, aged fifty
and a father of five, who owned the small garage across from the college,
approximately sixty meters from where the bomb went off (see photo). According
to the metal shop owner Siddiq, Nuri was taken to the hospital but he died on
the way.

Another witness, Muhammad Wirya Baha' al-Din, was meeting
the director of IshlikCollege when the bomb
exploded. He took two men to the hospital with head wounds, he said:

My back was to the windows, and the explosion blew open
the windows and shattered the glass on my back. The force threw me across the
room. I took two people to the hospital, two workers. Both of them were outside
and had head injuries.[122]

Ansar al-Sunna did not claim responsibility for the attack,
but Kurdish security officials told Human Rights Watch that they had arrested a
twenty-two-year-old Kurdish man from the group for taking part in the attack.[123]

On September 19, 2004, Ansar al-Sunna announced that it had
captured and killed three members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and a
video on the group's website showed three men getting beheaded. "The puppet
Kurdish groups... have pledged allegiance to the crusaders and continue to fight
Islam and its people," a statement with the video said.[124]
The group also said the killings were "for us to revenge our women, children
and elderly who die daily from American raids."[125]

On December 12, 2004, a car bomb exploded at 1:00 p.m. near
the al-Khadija Mosque in Arbil as KDP official Amin Najjar was driving by. Najjar
was unhurt but the bomb wounded two others.[126]
"The mujahideen managed to blow up a rigged car in Arbil against one of the
officials of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) led by Masud Barzani, but the
man was not killed," a statement posted on the Ansar al-Sunna website said.[127] Kurdish
officials arrested a twenty-one-year-old Kurdish man who they claimed had
driven the explosives-laden car.[128]

On April 28, 2005, unknown gunmen in Mosul shot and killed Sayyid Talib Sayyid Wahhab,
a KDP official. Three days later, a bomb-laden car rammed into his funeral in
Tal Afar, killing at least twenty-five people and wounding more than fifty.[129] It is
not known who staged the attack.

On May 4, a suicide bomber slipped into a line of young men
waiting to sign up for the police in Arbil and detonated his explosives,
killing forty-six people and wounding an estimated 150.[130]
"The scene was like a slaughterhouse, with body parts everywhere, heads, hands,
eyes. It was terrible," one survivor told the press.[131]
Ansar al-Sunna soon posted a statement on the Internet. "This operation is in
response to our brothers who are being tortured in your prisons... and in
response to the infidel peshmerga forces which surrendered themselves to the
Crusaders and became a thorn in the side of Muslims," it said.[132]

Attacks on Christians

Iraq's
ancient Christian community, comprised of Chaldean Catholics, Assyrians, Roman
and Syriac Catholics, Greek, Syriac and Armenian Orthodox, Anglicans and
others, comprises roughly 3 percent of the country's population, or about
800,000 people. Mostly concentrated in and around Baghdad,
Mosul, Kirkuk
and Arbil, Christians are generally in the professional class and are
considered wealthier than the average Iraqi. In the eyes of some insurgent
groups, Christians supported the U.S.-led invasion, and many members of the
community subsequently took jobs with the CPA or U.S. government.

Especially in 2004, violence against Christians by insurgent
groups was consistent and intense. As of March 2005, tens of thousands of Iraqi
Christians had fled the country, mostly for Syria
and Jordan.
And thousands left their homes for the relative safety of the
Kurdish-controlled north. Human Rights Watch interviewed eight of these
families in January and February 2005, most of them from Mosul
and Baghdad. They
had left their homes, they said, after threats, abductions and attacks. In some
cases, family members had been killed. In addition, religious extremists have
threatened and attacked Christians for not living by strict Islamic codes. Armed
groups have threatened Christian women who did not cover their heads and killed
Christian vendors who sell alcohol.[133]

One of the first reported attacks against Christians occurred
in Baghdad in
March 2004, when gunmen shot and killed `Aziz and Ranin Ra`d Azzu, aged five
and fourteen respectively, apparently because their father sold alcohol. The
family reportedly had received a death threat before the murders. "We are
warning you, the enemies of God and Islam, from selling alcohol again, and
unless you stop we will kill you and send you to hell where a worse fate awaits
you," the warning reportedly said, signed by Harakat Ansar al-Islam (Supporters
of Islam Movement.)[134]

The most public and coordinated attacks took place on
Sunday, August 1,
2004, when insurgents detonated car bombs at five churches, four in
Baghdad and one in Mosul, killing eleven people and wounding more than forty. The
attacks sparked an exodus of Christians to Syria,
Jordan
and the Kurdish-controlled north.

-

A Christian woman from Baghdad living near Arbil displays
her crucifix tattoo. Like hundreds of Christians from the capital, she and her
family fled to northern Iraq
for safety from threats and attacks.

2005 Human Rights Watch

The first bomb exploded around 6:00 p.m. as mass was
starting at an Armenian Orthodox church Our Lady of the Flowers in Baghdad's al-Karrada
neighborhood. Less than half an hour later, a second bomb exploded at the
nearby Assyrian church Our Lady of Salvation, followed by blasts at a church in
the al-Dora neighborhood and another in Bagdhad al-Jadida.

A woman named Payman was leaving the church in al-Dura,
Church of the Two Messengers, when a bomb exploded. In Kurdish-controlled Iraq,
where she had fled with her family after the attack, she told Human Rights
Watch that the church was crowded, with between 100 and 200 worshippers, when
the bomb went off:

The church itself was not damaged because the explosion
was from the parking lot in the back. Only some windows broke. There was one of
the poor people who gets donations. He died. We had given him money and we
later saw him lying on the ground. An engaged couple was there giving out their
wedding invitations in the church, and both of them died.[135]

Human Rights Watch spoke separately with another woman who
was present at the church during the attack. She said:

I was just leaving the church going outside when I heard
a big explosion. I didn't know what happened; I just saw a lot of smoke There
was a lot of confusion and chaos and people didn't know what had happened. But
people were running around and some of them were wounded. The people in the
back died. And then the ambulances arrived.[136]

The day after the attacks, a previously unknown group
calling itself the "Committee of Planning and Follow-up in Iraq" reportedly claimed
responsibility on a website, saying "you wanted a crusade, and these are its
results." Human Rights Watch did not see the original statement in Arabic but,
based on a translation into English by an Assyrian Christian group, the
statement read:

A Declaration from the Committee of Planning and
Follow-Up in Iraq

In the name of God the most merciful,

Thanks be to God the supporter of his faithful, prayers
and peace be upon him, who was sent with the sword at these times as a mercy
for human beings. He who believes in him and upholds his methods will gain
paradise and he who denies him and sways away from his methods will be lost
forever.

O! Muslims wherever you live...

The war today in Iraq and Afghanistan is undoubtedly
something that two Muslims wouldn't argue about, that it's a hateful Crusades
war targeting Islam and Muslims and that the United States and its allies[137] didn't
ever delay or spare an effort to fight God's religion with all the power that
they have and with the blessing of the (Pope) before whom the leaders of
America stand like slaves.

O! Believers in one God...

America
didn't only occupy and invade militarily the Islamic lands but they also founded
hundreds of Christianizing establishments, printing false deviated books and
distributing them amongst the Muslims in an effort to strip them away of their
religion and Christianize them. The Crusaders are one nation even if they
differed in their ideas.

The American forces and their intelligence systems have
found a safe haven and refuge amongst their brethren the grandchildren of
monkeys and swine in Iraq.

The graceful God has enabled us on Sunday, August 1, 2004,
to aim several painful blows at their dens, the dens of wickedness, corruption
and Christianizing. Your striving brethren were able to blow up four cars aimed
at the churches in Karrada, Baghdad Jadida and Dora while another group of
mujahedeen hit the churches in Mosul.

As we announce our responsibility for the bombings we
tell you, the people of the crosses: return to your senses and be aware that
God's soldiers are ready for you. You wanted a Crusade and these are its
results. God is great and glory be to God and his messenger. He who has warned
is excused.

Prayers and peace be upon our prophet Muhammad, his kin
and companions.

Three days later, another group used the Internet to deny
that Islamic militants had committed the attacks. A statement signed by the "MediaCenter
for Mujahedeen" said that "if the mujahedeen had wanted to target those
churches, they would have made them disappear from the face of earth and nobody
would have come out alive." Christians in Iraq would not be harmed, the
statement said, so long as they respected three rules: do not "collaborate with
the occupation," do not "betray Muslims," and do not attack Islam or try to
convert Muslims. At the top of the statement were the names of three previously
unknown groups, identified in English as: the Jihad Battalions, the Islamic
Army Brigades and the Shura Council of Jihad. The statement did not present a
definition of collaboration or betrayal.[139]

Muslim political and religious leaders, as well as the Iraqi
Interim Government, roundly condemned the attacks. Iraq's
most senior Shi`a Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah `Ali al-Hussaini al-Sistani,
called the attacks "criminal acts" that targeted Iraq's "unity, stability and
independence."[140] The
Association of Muslim Scholars said the bombings were "totally remote from any
religious or humanitarian norms."[141]

Insurgent groups bombed two more churches on November 9, 2004,
the day U.S. Marines began their second major offensive on the city of
al-Falluja. Around 6:30 p.m., a car bomb exploded near St.
George'sChurch in
southern Baghdad,
causing no casualties. About five minutes later, another car bomb detonated
less than one mile away at St. Matthew's Church, killing three people and
wounding more than twenty-five. A Christian man who lived near the two churches
explained to Human Rights Watch how he was wounded in the second attack:

We were home, and I heard an explosion from a distance. We
went up to the roof to see what it was when something exploded nearby. The
explosion came, and rubble fell on our heads. Something cut my left arm, and I
started bleeding. All our windows broke, and the front door too My neighbor
cut his head, and another person got glass in his neck.[142]

Four or five days later, the man said, he and his wife
blocked their front door with stones-because the explosions had destroyed the
metal door-and set out for the Kurdish-controlled north. "We came out of fear,"
he said. "I don't want to give any personal details because one day I will
hopefully go back. I don't want any problems."

This man joined a growing Christian community in the Kurdish
zone. Although total numbers are not known, hundreds of Christians have settled
temporarily in and around Arbil, Sulaimaniya and Dohuk. According to the mukhtar (local community representative)
of `Ain Kawa, a largely Christian village near Arbil, approximately one hundred
Christian families have come to `Ain Kawa in the past year, mostly from Mosul.[143]
A priest in Sulaimaniyya who did not wish to be named said thirty-one families
had come to Sulaimaniyya, Koisanjaq and a nearby Christian village called
Armouta.[144] He
showed Human Rights Watch a pile of requests from other Christian families in
places like Baghdad, Basra and al-Falluja, asking the church for help to
relocate in the Kurdish region (see photo).[145]

"I came because of fear for my daughter, who got sick from
being scared," said Payman, a mother of three who was in the Church of the Two
Messengers when the bomb exploded. "She was afraid to sleep alone at night. Then
she got herpes." She continued: "My two nieces worked as cleaners at the
Convention Center [in Baghdad].
They were threatened and quit. Three other girls, also Christians, worked there
too. They were killed and my nieces saw it. They came home hysterical."[146]

A priest in Sulaimaniya
reviews letters from Christians all over Iraq seeking help in relocating to
the Kurdish-controlled north to escape threats and attacks.

2005 Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch interviewed three other Christian
families who had lost a family member to violence by an insurgent group. One
victim was Ra`d Nisam, a twenty-three-year-old father of three, who was killed
by unknown gunmen on September
26, 2004, near his home in the al-Dora neighborhood of Baghdad,
although it is not certain that he was attacked because of his religion. According
to a family member, Nisam worked at the Hunting Club in Baghdad, where he had been a manual laborer
for more than six years. He and his co-workers, all of them Christians, were
driving home from work just after midnight
when gunmen sprayed their car with bullets, wounding two and killing three,
including the Muslim driver. The family member told Human Rights Watch:

I
ran towards the car and I saw them there. The driver was a Muslim and he was
also killed After I saw the scene before me I don't remember anything else. You
can imagine the state I was in. All I learned afterwards is that the shooters
wore masks but it was dark and we don't know who is responsible.[147]

V. Attacks on Civilians Working for Foreign
Governments

While most insurgent attacks in 2003 targeted Iraqi or
multinational forces, by early 2004 insurgents began to attack so-called "soft
targets" affiliated with the foreign forces in Iraq; namely, Iraqi and foreign
civilians working for, or suspected of working for, the Multi-National Force or
foreign governments. By far the largest number of victims has been Iraqis who
worked as translators, cleaners, drivers and barbers for the CPA, the U.S.
government or other governments in the coalition, as well as those suspected of
giving information to foreign governments. The total number of victims is
unknown, but press reports and anecdotal evidence reveal a pattern of threats
and attacks, including the murder of civilians who work with foreign
governments in any capacity.

According to those claiming responsibility for attacks on
these civilians, the victims were valid targets because they were collaborating
with the foreign powers in Iraq.
Even though they were not directly engaged in hostilities, they were viewed as
aiding and abetting foreign forces by providing services to a government or
military. As a matter of international humanitarian law, any attack against civilians
who are not directly participating in hostilities is prohibited.

The attacks are intended as punishment for perceived
collaboration and as a warning to others who might consider such work. On October 23, 2004,
for example, Ansar al-Sunna posted a video on its website that showed the
"confession" and execution of Saif `AdnanKan`an, who said he was a vehicle mechanic at the U.S. base in Mosul. "I am telling anybody who wants to
work with Americans to not work with them," he said. "I found out that the
mujahadeen have very accurate information [and] strong intelligence about
everything. They are stronger than I thought." He was then beheaded.[148]

A well documented target among this category of victims is
Iraqi and foreign civilians working on U.S.-government-funded reconstruction
contracts. According to a report by the U.S. government's Special Inspector
General for Iraq Reconstruction, insurgent groups killed 276 civilians working
on such contracts up to March 31, 2005.[149]
Approximately 100 of these civilians were U.S. citizens. The attacks have
continued apace since the report, with armed groups killing seven contractors,
injuring eleven and kidnapping up to sixteen in August, according to the U.S.
Project and Contracting Office in Baghdad.
Of the thirty-four contractors who were killed, wounded or went missing that
month, thirty-two of them were Iraqi and none was American.[150]

Another targeted group is translators who worked for the U.S.
government, the military or the CPA. According to one press report, insurgent
groups killed fifty-two translators

in Baghdad,
al-Falluja and al-Ramadi between January and September 2004, although the
report did not specify how they were killed. Forty-five of the deaths were in Baghdad.[151]

In one case documented by Human Rights Watch, armed men
gunned down four young women, all of them Christians, as they drove home from
work as cleaners on the U.S.
military base at Mosul
airport. According to family members of the victims, the three women in the
back seat were killed, while the driver and woman in the front survived.

Tara Majid Boutros, aged nineteen, was one of those killed
(see photo). A literature student at the university in Mosul, she was working at the base for the
summer to earn extra money for the family. Her father suffered from kidney
stones and was unable to work. According to family members, the four women
commuted every day from their homes in Bartala, just outside Mosul, to the airport base. One of them told
Human Rights Watch what happened on August 31, 2004:

Usually she [Tara] came home at 4:45 p.m. and we would
wait for her because the situation in Mosul
was bad. On that day she didn't come at 4:45 or 5:00. By 5:10, I was waiting in
the street, and I thought to call the family of the driver. When I called, I heard
crying, and someone said they had been attacked. You can imagine how I felt. I
dropped the phone. I was in bare feet but I ran to the family of the driver,
which was one kilometer away.[152]

At that point, another family member went to Mosul with a friend to
look for Tara and the other girls. They found her in al-RaziHospital,
badly wounded from bullet wounds to the lower back, hip and buttock and in need
of blood. She died just after they arrived.[153]
The death certificate stated the cause of death as "rupture of the heart and
two lungs as a result of gunfire."[154]

The two other victims were the sisters Taghrid and Hala `Ishaq.
According to the woman in the front seat, who received a minor shrapnel wound
in the back:

We were driving along, and we had just passed the light
near the al-Karama police station when a car came from behind and hit us on the
driver's side. I don't remember the kind of car, but it was milk colored. I
think they were three, a driver and two men in the back. Our driver stopped to
see who had crashed into us. Then he saw they had weapons so, although he had
slowed down, he said "Put your heads down!" and he sped up. He sped up and the
other car followed us but they had a better car and they caught up to us and
cornered us on the side of the street. They were shooting the whole time.

-
I ducked and stayed down until the shooting
stopped. I got a piece of metal from the car in my back. When I lifted my head,
I saw the driver move, and he was asking the girls if they were hit. He was
holding his side because he was hit. I didn't feel the fragment yet, but we
turned around and I saw the three girls were covered in blood. Only Tara said "Oh!" from the pain. We got out of the car and
opened the back door to see if we could help them. Tara
was right behind me so I asked where she was hurt. She only said, "Get me to
the hospital." We tried to stop some cars to help us and finally a car stopped
Before they drove away, when they pulled Tara
from the car, Hala slumped over. Half of her was in the car and half outside. It
was clear she was dead because she was hit in the head and half her brain was
out. So passersby lay her on the street and covered her with a scarf. I called
Taghrid and she moved her hand so people said she was still alive.[155]

The woman and driver helped get Taghrid and Tara to the
hospital. Taghrid was dead on arrival but Tara
was still alive, the woman explained:

While there, they brought Tara
for x-rays. Two of the nurses were called away, there was only one left, so he
asked me to help him put Tara in the right
position for x-rays. At that point, Tara was
still able to speak. She said, "Help me." I said, "Hold on, the doctors are
coming." But then, all of a sudden, she stopped speaking They had been giving
her blood. After the fourth pint, the x-rays returned. There was a bullet in
her urinary tract. There was internal bleeding. They said, "We can't help her."

Tara's family tried to speak with the police in Mosul but they were
repeatedly rebuffed, they said. "When I tried to speak to the police, I said
'they [the attackers] are terrorists,' but they told me, 'no, they are mujahadin,'"
one of the family members said.[156] The
family filed a complaint with the police ten days after the attack. The police
took witness testimonies, and then one of the officers asked the family
bluntly: "What got [her] into this mess? You know the mujahadin don't accept
[working for the U.S.]."
The U.S.
military called the family to the airport base, where they were asked if the
family suspected anyone in the girls' death, and whether the family had any
enemies. The family said no. An officer said they would contact the family
again in fifteen days, but the family has not heard from them since.

In a case involving Christians, gunmen shot and killed a man
named Isho Nissan Markus, aged twenty-three, and his niece Ramziyya, aged
twenty-one, while they went to work at the laundry in the Presidential Palace
in Baghdad, which was occupied by U.S. forces. According to a family member who
wanted to remain anonymous, his two relatives, together with three others named
Ramiz, Rami and Duraid, traveled every day by taxi to work in Baghdad's Green
Zone. On June 7,
2004, unknown assailants attacked them on the way to the family
home. The family member said:

We were at home at the time and we heard the commotion
outside, because the killing took place near our house, just at the end of the
road. When I got there I saw Ramziyya. We took her to the Al-YarmukHospital.
She had seven bullets in her back, her waist and her left hand. Isho had
received three bullets to the head and he died instantly. There were also two
other bullet wounds to his chest. Ramziyya was still alive when I found her but
she died around 12:30 p.m. after we had arrived at the hospital.[157]

According to the family member, the other passenger Duraid
also died, while Ramiz and Rami were wounded. According to the Assyrian
Democratic Movement, Iraq's
largest Christian political organization, three men died in the attack: Isho
Nissan Markus, Duraid Sabri Hanna and Hisham `Umar.[158]
It is possible that Hisham `Umar was killed on the street as a bystander rather
than in the car.

In a separate incident on the same day, the Assyrian
Democratic Movement said gunmen shot and killed a driver and three Assyrian
Christian women returning from work at the CPA, Alice Aramayis, Ayda Petros
Bakus and Muna Jalal Karim, but Human Rights Watch did not confirm this report.[159]

In a third case involving Christians, insurgents killed two
brothers whom they suspected of working for the United States military, Khalid
and Hani Boulos Tu'ma Sliwa, aged thirty and thirty-three, respectively. Gunmen
shot and killed both men in their car in Mosul
on September 2,
2004 (see photos).

According to family members, the problems began in mid-2004
when insurgents captured a Christian from Mosul,
who they believed was giving information to the U.S. military about insurgent
activity. An armed group called Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi soon distributed a video
around Mosul called "The Spies," in which the
captured man "confessed" to being an informer for the United States. In the video, viewed
by Human Rights Watch, the man names others as informers, including the five
brothers of the Sliwa family, before being beheaded with a large knife.

On June
1, 2004, one of the Sliwa brothers who wished not to be named was
walking home from a caf with four friends, two Christians and two Muslims,
when masked men opened fire on them with pistols. The brother said he was hit
in the left arm and stomach.[160] Human
Rights Watch saw scars in both places as well as medical records from the
al-Zahrawi Teaching Hospital in Mosul
attesting to the injuries.

The injured brother said that acquaintances from his al-Sa`a
neighborhood in Mosul, where the family had lived for five generations, had
threatened him before, wrongly asserting that he was working for the U.S.
military, but this was the first physical attack. Graffiti in the neighborhood
called for Christians to be killed, he said, and the beheading video by Salah
al-Din al-Ayyubi, mentioned above, was widely available in Mosul markets. According to the brother,
neither he nor anyone in his family worked for the U.S. government, but Human Rights
Watch did not confirm this claim.

Six weeks after the first shooting, gunmen again shot and
wounded the brother. Unknown men had entered his neighborhood, he said, and
when he went out to look, they opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles,
hitting him in the right thigh and left shin. Three other men nearby were also
hit.

-

Unknown
gunmen in Mosul shot and killed these two
brothers, Khalid and Hani Boulos Tu'ma Sliwa, aged thirty and thirty-three,
respectively, on September
2, 2004, apparently because they were thought to be giving
information to the U.S.
military about insurgent activity.

2005 Human Rights Watch

The injured brother interviewed by Human Rights Watch left Mosul, but the other Sliwa
brothers stayed behind. On September 2, relatives said, Khalid and Hani were
pulling their red BMW out of a garage when approximately fifteen armed men
blocked their path and opened fire with automatic rifles, killing them both. The
family went to the police station in Mosul's
Khazraj district and gave the names of the people who had threatened them in
the past, but said the police told them to go home. As of February 2005, the
family had no information on whether the attackers had been arrested. "We went
to the police but it was no use," the brother said.

The entire family moved to `Ain Kawa after the murders,
where they lived in small rented house. "We are threatened. We cannot go back,"
one of the family members said. "I would never allow my [family] to go back. We
had to leave."[161]

In a case with a Kurdish victim, unknown insurgents abducted
and beheaded Khalid Anwar Ibrahim Mustafa Khoshnaw, a father of five, in Mosul on September 9, 2004.

A son of Khalid Khoshnaw
sits by his father's grave outside Arbil. Unknown insurgents abducted and
beheaded Khalid, a Kurdish father of five, in Mosul on September 9, 2004.

2005 Human Rights Watch

Although he was not formally working for the U.S. government or military, he did occasionally
visit the U.S. base at the Mosul airport, his family
said, and he had previously worked with the CPA in Arbil.[162]
His precise relationship to the U.S.
government remains unclear but, by all accounts, he was not engaged in
hostilities and was a civilian under the law.

Armed men previously had threatened Khoshnaw, a taxi driver
in Mosul who
was married to an Arab woman for thirteen years, two family members said. About
one month before his murder, an unknown group had abducted him for ten days,
but they released him unharmed.

On September 9, Khoshnaw went out to buy breakfast with his
young son in the al-Karama neighborhood. Some minutes later, the son returned
alone. Two days later, Khoshnaw's decapitated body appeared on a street with
the left hand also severed. A relative explained the circumstances of the
murder:

He went out to get breakfast. A bit later, about fifteen
minutes, his son came home and said, "my father has been killed." I went to the
place where the car was and I saw it burning. It was near our house. The car
was on fire but the fire engine was there and the police too, trying to put out
the fire. I asked the police, and they told me Khalid had been taken away.

They told me nothing else. I went home, but the next day
people told me his head had been found near where the car was. I didn't go
myself but neighbors went to the hospital to identify the head. The next day,
his father went to the hospital and identified his son. The body was found two
days later. I learned from the hospital that they had discovered the body. We
have a relative who works there. Khalid's father identified the body because of
the tattoos with his children's names [on the severed hand].[163]

Three-and-a-half months after his murder, Khoshnaw's wife
gave birth to a baby boy, Ghaffur.

One case reported in the press happened on January 21, 2004,
when gunmen attacked a minibus carrying workers from Baghdad
to the U.S.
military base in al-Habbaniyya near al-Falluja. Five Christian women were
killed.[164] U.S.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt believed the purpose of the attack was "to send
a message of terror to those people that if you work for the coalition... we
can reach out and touch you."[165]

Some employees of foreign governments received threats that
caused them to leave their jobs, and subsequently moved to the relative safety
of the Kurdish-controlled north or fled Iraq. One such man who spoke with
Human Rights Watch in northern Iraq
was a car mechanic in Mosul.
In the summer of 2004, he said, U.S.
soldiers asked if he would work on their vehicles. He repaired two Humvee
military vehicles and, one week later, was visited by Iraqi men he did not
know. He explained:

One week later, two men came in dishdasha [white robes] and red scarves. I don't know if they were
armed. "Why are you working for the Americans?" they said. "If you don't stop
that, we will kill you." I said "I'm just earning a living." They said, "If you
don't stop, we'll kill you." Out of fear, I never went back to my work again. And
one week later we left.[166]

VI. Attacks on Government Officials and Politicians

Since mid-2003,
insurgent groups have repeatedly attacked Iraqi government officials and
politicians. Various armed groups have killed dozens, if not hundreds, of local
and national government officials and political party officials, as well as
judges, by means of assassination squads, roadside bombs and suicide attacks. A
total figure is not known due to the magnitude of the attacks and the absence
of a comprehensive reporting scheme. Political figures have also been the
target of criminally motivated attacks.

Insurgent groups
like the Islamic Army in Iraq,
Ansar al-Sunna and al-Tawhid wal-Jihad haverepeatedly claimed responsibility
for attacks on government officials. In the run-up to the January 30, 2005, elections
for the Transitional National Assembly, various groups warned Iraqis not to
take part, with leaflets in neighborhoods addressed, for example, to "everyone
who wants to stand in the queues of elections, the queues of doom and death."[167]
Some insurgent groups viewed Iraq's
Interim Governing Council as a body that served the interests of the United States.
"Our position is clear-they are all spies, traitors, and agents for the
Americans," said a spokesman for Jaysh Muhammad, one of the larger Sunni
groups.[168]

One of the most prominent political killings was on August 29, 2003,
when a car bomb outside the Imam Ali Mosque in al-Nafaj, killed Ayatollah
Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, head of SCIRI, and more than eighty-two other people
(see chapter IV of this report, "Attacks on Ethnic and Religious Groups").

Shi`a politicians have since been a regular target of
insurgent attacks. On September 20, 2003, unknown gunmen in west Baghdad shot `Aqila
al-Hashimi, one of three female members of the U.S.-appointed Interim Governing
Council, and she died five days later. A Shi`a Muslim and former diplomat, `Aqila
al-Hashimi was preparing to leave for New
York as part of the Iraqi delegation to the United
Nations General Assembly. One eyewitness told the press: "I saw a pick-up truck
and a Mercedes pull up just as she was leaving in her Land Cruiser with her
bodyguards following in a second car." He continued:

There were men hiding in the back of the pick-up with
guns who jumped up and started firing. As her car tried to escape, someone
threw a grenade. I saw her brother, who was one of her bodyguards, come running
with blood on his face, shouting 'My sister, my sister!'[169]

According to members of al-Hashimi's security detail, the
assailants first fired a rocket-propelled grenade, missing her car, and then
opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles.[170]
`Aqila al-Hashimi arrived at the al-Yarmuk hospital around 10:30 a.m. with
serious abdominal wounds, and was taken to a U.S. military hospital.[171] She
underwent two surgeries and died on September 25.[172]

`Aqila al-Hashimi's replacement on the governing council was
another Shi`a woman, a dentistry professor named Salama al-Khafaji, who was
active in the dentists' union after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government
(see photo in Chapter XI of this report, "Attacks on Women"). On January 16, 2004,
gunmen in Iraqi police uniforms attacked Salama al-Khafaji's convoy in Baghdad, but her
bodyguards returned fire, and no one was hurt. Four months later, on May 27,
unidentified assailants ambushed her convoy again, this time near al-Yusufiyya,
south of Baghdad, killing her bodyguard and her eldest son Ahmad.

Salama al-Khafaji was driving from al-Najaf to Baghdad in the early
evening when four men in a red Opel overtook her three-car convoy. The Opel
turned around and sped back in the opposite direction, al-Khafaji told a
journalist who profiled her life. "They looked at us and knew who we were. They
went away to get their weapons and came back," she explained. "I saw Ahmad's
car veering off the road into a canal, but there was so much dust that I
couldn't really see what happened." To save her life, al-Khafaji's driver sped
away.

That night al-Khafaji learned that her bodyguard had been
killed, and her son's body was found the following day. "When I was in Najaf, I
met many women who had lost their sons, husbands, brothers and I was very moved
by their desire for peace," she said in the profile. "It's the women who have
suffered the most under this occupation. And that's why it's women who want
peace the most."[173]

Insurgent groups have targeted individual Kurdish
politicians as well. On March 28, 2004, armed men in the al-Karama neighborhood of
Mosul tried to
assassinate Nasrine Berwari, Minister of Municipalities and Public Works, and
one of five Kurdish ministers and the only woman in the U.S.-appointed Iraqi
Interim Government. She escaped, but a driver and bodyguard were killed.[174] Human
Rights Watch interviewed one Kurdish politician, Sadi Ahmad Pire, a PUK
political representative in Mosul,
who said he had survived three assassination attempts. In March 2004,
insurgents attacked his Mosul
office with mortars, killing two guards and wounding eight, he said. In July
2004, insurgents attacked his convoy in Mosul
with a roadside bomb. And in August 2004, insurgents attacked his convoy with
an explosives-laden car. "I had switched cars, and they attacked the old car
with a suicide bomb," he said.[175] According
to a press report, the attack killed two bystanders and a bodyguard.[176]

The February 1, 2004,
suicide bomber attacks at the Arbil offices of the main Kurdish political
parties killed ninety-nine people and wounded 246 (see chapter IV of this
report, "Attacks on Ethnic and Religious Groups"). While most of the casualties
were Kurdish civilians who were visiting the party offices on the holiday of
Eid al-Adha, many party officials were also killed, including Sami
Abdul-Rahman, deputy prime minister of the KDP government, Akram Mantiq,
governor of Arbil province, Mantiq's deputy Mahdi Khoshnaw and twelve members
of the PUK leadership in Arbil.

Below is a list of
the leading Iraqi political figures attacked between March 2003 and July 2005,
each based on two or more media sources.[177]

January 28, 2004-A car bomb exploded outside
the Baghdad
hotel inhabited by Minister of Labor Sami
Azara al-Majun. He was not hurt, but three people were killed.

May 17, 2004-A car bomb in Baghdad killed acting president of the
Interim Governing Council, `Abd al-Zahra
`Usman Muhammad, known as 'Izzedin Salim. Al-Tawhid wal-Jihad later claimed
credit for the attack.

May 22, 2004-A car bomb at the house of `Abd al-Jabbar Yusuf, Deputy Interior
Minister, kills Yusuf and five others. Thirteen people were wounded.

July 14, 2004-A group reportedly run by
al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for murdering the governor of Nineveh province, `Usama
Kachmula, and two of his bodyguards in Mosul.

July 17, 2004-Justice Minister Malik Duhan al-Hassan escaped a suicide
car bomb attack in Baghdad,
but five others were killed.

August 24, 2004-A suicide bomber attacks
Environment Minister Miskat Mu'min
and Education Minister Sami al-Muzaffar.
They both survived, but five other people were killed.

September 1, 2004-The Islamic Army in Iraq claimed responsibility for an attack on the
convoy of Ahmad Chalabi, head of the
Iraqi National Congress, in al-Latifiyya, south of Baghdad. Chalabi survived but two of his
bodyguards were killed.

September 7, 2004-Baghdad governor `Ali Radi al-Haidari escaped an assassination attempt, but two
civilians were killed.

January 4, 2005-Baghdad Governor `Ali Radi al-Haidari and one of his
bodyguards were killed by unidentified assailants in a roadside ambush in
the capital.

April 27, 2005-Gunmen shot and killed a Shi`a
member of parliament, Lamia `Abid Khaduri al-Sagri, as she opened
the door of her Baghdad
home. Al-Sagri, who had reportedly escaped two previous assassination attempts,
had recently been elected to the Iraqi parliament on then-Prime Minister Ayad `Allawi's
Iraqi List.

May 8, 2005-Unknown gunmen shoot and kill Zoba Yass, a senior official in the
Transportation Ministry, along with his driver in Baghdad.

May 14, 2005-Unknown gunmen shoot and kill Jassim Muhammad Ghani, director-general
of the Foreign Ministry, outside his home in Baghdad.

May 18, 2005-Unknown gunmen in Baghdad shoot and kill Salah Niyazi, an official from the
Youth and Sport Ministry.

June 28, 2005-A suicide car bomber killed the
influential Shi`a member of parliament Dhari
`Ali al-Fayadh, his son and two bodyguards as they drove to Baghdad. Al-Fayadh was
parliament's eldest member and was serving as interim speaker. Al-Qaeda in Iraq
claimed responsibility for the attack.

July 19, 2005-Unknown gunmen in Baghdad killed Mijbil Shaikh al-`Issa, a Sunni
representative on the Constitution Drafting Committee of the Transitional
National Assembly, Dahman al-Jaburi,
an adviser to the Committee, and their driver.

Judges are not included in the above list but they have also
been the target of attack. On January 25, 2005, for example, armed men in a
car shot and killed Qais Hashim al-Shamari, the secretary of Iraq's Council of Judges, together
with his son. Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack, saying,
"the heroes laid a carefully planned trap to one of the symbols of infidelity
and apostasy in the new Iraqi government, the administrator of Iraq's
judges."[178] On March 1, 2005,
unknown gunmen shot and killed Judge Barawiz Mahmud, who worked for the Iraqi
Special Tribunal, and his son as they left their home in Baghdad.[179]

In addition to these documented cases, insurgents have
threatened, assaulted, abducted and killed hundreds of local officials,
including employees at national ministries, provincial governments and
municipalities. Typically the persons responsible are unknown. Human Rights
Watch interviewed one man who worked in the al-Falluja municipality and fled Iraq
after insurgents detained him for two days. The man, who wished to remain
anonymous, had previously received warnings to leave his job and then, on May 7, 2004,
unknown men abducted him on his way to work. He explained:

On the first day, they asked me for my name and other
personal questions. Then they said, "Didn't we tell you not to work with the
Americans? We are following everything, and we have people in the police and
other places." They took down my name and address and left the room.

The next day a group
of them came. One of them was senior. They addressed him as "shaikh." He also
said, "we told you not to work with the Americans." I said I was working with
the [municipality]. He said "the emir has issued a fatwa ordering your killing.
You ate, drank and shook the hands of the infidels, so that makes you an
infidel. You are a pig and a monkey just like them." I was too scared to ask
who the emir was. I just said I repent. They told me, "after we kill you, if
God wants to forgive you he can." I said I have a family, and they told me to
shut up. They left and then came back five minutes later. They said, "the emir
wants to execute the sentence of Islam, but we begged him to give you another
chance. But you must leave Iraq,
not just Falluja. If you stay, the blood of your wife and children will also be
spilled." One of them held his rifle to my head and cocked the trigger.[180]

After his release, insurgents threw hand grenades at his home
and burned it down, he said. His wife and children moved out of al-Falluja to
live with family elsewhere, and the man fled Iraq, to a country he did not want
to identify. Other municipal workers in al-Falluja had been killed, he said. He
had found one such person's body around the town-a first lieutenant who had
worked with the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (which was subsequently incorporated
into the Iraqi armed forces).[181]

The period before the January 30, 2005, Iraqi elections was
particularly violent, with almost daily attacks against candidates and election
commission officials. Due to threats and attacks, very few political groups had
public meetings or campaigns. Most did not release the names of their
candidates until days before the vote.

In a survey of election-related incidents, the U.S.-based
International Foundation of Electoral Systems (IFES) documented 141 cases in
the forty-five days prior to the elections, ranging from "vandalism of campaign
material to intimidation, death threats, kidnapping, assassination, small arms
fire, suicide bombings, and executions."[182]
In the seventy cases for which a perpetrator could be determined,
"insurgent-initiated violence far outnumbered participant-initiated violence."[183]
For example, on December
26, 2004, gunmen shot and killed Communist Party leader Sa`di `Abd
al-Jabbar al-Bayati south of Baghdad.[184]
Ten days later, on January
5, 2005, gunmen killed Hadi Salih, another Communist Party leader.[185] On
January 12, gunmen killed two aides to Ayatollah `Ali al-Sistani in Salman Pak
and Najaf-Ansar al-Islam claimed responsibility for the killing in Salman Pak.[186] On
January 17, gunmen killed Shakir Jabir Sahla, a candidate for the
Constitutional Monarchy Movement.[187]
The next day, gunmen in Basra shot and killed
two candidates from the Iraqi National Accord, Riad Radi and `Ala' Hamid.

Election commission workers were the regular target of
threats, harassment and violence by insurgents, which severely impeded their
ability to work. In one incident that received Iraqi and international media
attention, gunmen pulled five election workers from a car on Baghdad's Haifa
Street on December
19, 2004, and shot three of them to death.[188]

As election day approached, election workers increasingly
quit their jobs due to threats.
In one reported example that typified the threats, a Baghdad resident was distributing voter
registration papers in his al-Bayya` neighborhood until he received a
threatening letter in the mail. "The sword has become very near to your neck,"
the letter said. "Leave any work that relates to the elections and stay safe."[189]

Election day was quieter than many had predicted, largely
due to well-coordinated security measures and a country-wide ban on car travel.
At least one insurgent group stated that it would not attack voters or polling
places. The Islamic Front of the Iraqi Resistance, apparently an umbrella
organization of various Sunni armed groups, announced on January 27 that, while
it condemned the elections as "a farce" that will "serve U.S. interests," it
had ordered its fighters not to attack polling stations or to involve
themselves in any way "in shedding one drop of the blood of our honorable Iraqi
people."[190]

Insurgent groups have also targeted the family members of
politicians. On November
10, 2004, armed men in Baghdad
abducted three relatives of then-Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad `Allawi, two of them
women. A group called Ansar al-Jihad claimed responsibility and demanded that
male and female detainees in Iraq
be released and that the U.S.
military halt its offensive in al-Falluja. They released the two women four
days later and, one week later, they released the man, `Allawi's
seventy-five-year-old cousin.[191] After
their release, al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility, and said
it had released the three `Allawi relatives because they were not involved in
the government.[192]

VII. Attacks on Civilians Applying
for the Iraqi Security Forces

Insurgent groups have frequently targeted groups of men
waiting to sign up for the Iraqi police or armed forces, which they consider
"collaborating with the infidel crusaders."[193]
Typically, a large car bomb explodes outside a police station or other building
where the registration process is taking place.

Iraqi soldiers and policemen engaged in military operations
are legitimate targets under international humanitarian law. These attacks,
however, are unlawful because the targets were not combatants. The applicants
were not yet members of the security forces-they were still civilians not
taking a direct part in hostilities. The intention to join a security force
does not revoke the immunity a civilian enjoys.

Even if such attacks were targeting a police station used
for military purposes or a military recruiting center, the nature of the
attacks likely makes them unlawful as indiscriminate or as causing
disproportionate civilian harm. In any case, the bombings cases documented in
this chapter suggest that the intended target was the applicants outside the
building-all of them still civilians-rather than the building, whether or not a
military target, they were waiting to enter. Moreover, many of the attackers
employed perfidious means, feigning civilian status to get close to their
target, which is likewise unlawful under international law.

On February 10, 2004, for example, a suicide bomber detonated
a truck bomb outside a police station in al-Iskandariyya, killing some fifty
applicants and other civilians and no police. The bomb ripped the front off the
police station, blasted a large crater in the concrete and threw body parts
across the street.

According to witnesses, the bomb detonated around 8:30 a.m.
in an area that held the police station, the local court and the mayor's
office. The compound was crowded with people applying for jobs at the police,
some of whom were killed. The local police said a red pick-up truck with 500
pounds of explosives detonated as it drove by the station.

"We found the bodies burnt and broken into pieces. We found
pieces of flesh on the roof," a witness told the press. "We found body parts
that we couldn't tell who they belonged to. There were pieces of women."[194]

According to one press report, no Iraqi police died.[195] According
to the Iraqi Interior Ministry, between forty and fifty people died and up to
100 people were injured, including four members of the police.[196]

The next day, February 11, a suicide bomber in a car
detonated his explosives amidst a large group of Iraqis waiting outside an army
recruitment center in southeastern Baghdad,
killing between thirty-six and forty-seven applicants.[197]
"I saw a white Oldsmobile slowly approaching. It ran over some people and
exploded," one injured Iraqi army officer said from his hospital bed. "I was
blown up in the air and saw fire and body parts all around me."[198]

On July 28, 2004, a suicide car bomb exploded outside a
police station in Ba`quba and killed sixty-eight people. The target was the
hundreds of men waiting to sign up for the police outside the station, but the
bomb had a devastating impact on nearby shops, apartments and a minibus. "I saw
all those volunteers standing in line and I had a feeling something was about
to happen, so I locked my shop and started to walk away," a grocery store owner
next to the station told the press. "That's when the explosion happened. I saw
smoke, people running everywhere, shrapnel falling and pieces of flesh. I don't
know whom to blame, because no Muslim and no Iraqi could do such a thing."[199]

According to one press report, "the blast strewed corpses,
tangled wreckage and puddles of blood over a busy, sun-baked street of shops
and government offices."[200] One
witness said he saw burnt-up bodies inside the bus. "There were several bodies
inside the shops and on the rooftops," he said.[201]

On February 28, 2005, at about 8:30 am in the city of al-Hilla, sixty miles south of Baghdad, a car bomb
exploded and killed at least 125 people and wounded about 130. The apparent
target was a group of several hundred people who were lined up outside a health
center to take medical exams for acceptance into the police and armed forces. Among
the dead were people in the market across the street from the health center. In
addition to directly targeting civilians, the attack was unlawfully directed at
a health center, which is a protected object.[202]
"I was standing inside the door when I saw a car coming fast down the road
opposite the clinic," a security guard at the health clinic said. "All of a
sudden the glass and shrapnel started coming down all around my head. When I
got outside I couldn't believe it: there were dead bodies everywhere, and blood
on the walls and the street."[203]

The day after the attack, the al-Qaeda Organization for Holy
War in Iraq
claimed responsibility, according to a statement posted on the Internet. "A
lion from our martyrdom brigade plunged into a gathering of apostates in front
of a police and National Guard registration center, blowing up his loaded car
and killing 125 apostates," the statement said. "The blood of the apostates was
helping the Americans. They had sold their religion and their honor." Human
Rights Watch could not verify the claim, but it appeared on a website most
often used by Iraqi insurgents and was in the name of the person who usually
disseminates statements by al-Qaeda in Iraq.[204]

In the most recent large-scale attack, on May 4, a suicide
bomber detonated his explosives amidst a group of Kurdish men waiting to sign
up for the police in Arbil, killing forty-six people and wounding an estimated
150.[205] Ansar
al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack.[206]
(See "Attacks on Kurds" in chapter IV of this report, "Attacks on Ethnic and
Religious Groups".)

VIII. Attacks on Humanitarian Organizations and the
U.N.

Since the summer of 2003, some insurgent groups in Iraq have targeted foreign and Iraqi staff of
humanitarian organizations and U.N. agencies that provide health care, food and
other assistance to Iraq.
They have used suicide bombers against offices and committed abductions and
summary executions.

The insurgent groups responsible consider foreign aid
organizations and the U.N. to be part and parcel of the foreign forces in Iraq
and therefore legitimate targets for attack. The broad-based and apparently
indiscriminate nature of the attacks has resulted in the departure of most
foreign humanitarian workers in Iraq.

According to international humanitarian law, aid workers,
whether foreign nationals or citizens, are civilians who are protected from
attack. Moreover, international law imposes additional obligations on
governments and armed groups to facilitate the work of impartial humanitarian
organizations that aid the victims of the conflict.[207]

The threats and violence have forced countless Iraqis
working for foreign aid organizations to abandon their jobs, and sometimes the
country. Especially after the spate of abductions of foreigners in 2004,
international humanitarian organizations sharply scaled down operations or
stopped their operations in Iraq
altogether. Many of these groups were providing desperately needed services and
aid to the population in the fields of sanitation, health care and education.

One of the first large-scale attacks was on August 19, 2003,
when insurgents detonated a massive truck bomb outside the U.N. headquarters at
the Canal Hotel in Baghdad,
killing twenty-two people and wounding more than 150. U.N. Special Representative
to the Secretary-General Sergio Vieira de Mello was among the dead.

While the United Nations is not a humanitarian organization
per se, agencies like UNICEF, the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and
the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) were providing essential services
for the population, such as education, health and nutrition, water and
environmental sanitation, and child protection.[208]

From June 1 to mid-July 2003, there were fifteen security
incidents that affected the United Nations, including rocket-propelled grenade
attacks on the World Food Program (WFP) and International Organization for
Migration (IOM) offices in Mosul and gunfire at
the UNDP office in Baghdad.[209] At 4:30
p.m. on August 19, a suicide bomber driving a flatbed truck drove unhindered up
the service road next to U.N. headquarters and detonated an estimated 1,000
kilograms of high explosives under de Mello's office on the third floor.

Rasha al-Kaisy, a personal assistant at the United Nations
in Iraq
since 1998, was sitting in her office when the bomb went off. She told Human
Rights Watch:

I did not hear the sound of the bomb. All of a sudden it
happened that all the glass shattered. At first I thought it was something
small, but when I came out and saw the destruction, I realized it was big. At
first people didn't know what it was. Later we were told it was a car bomb. Of
course the building was without security. I saw a lot of injured people, people
screaming, people on the ground. You didn't know if they were alive or dead. So
many injured people were on the ground.[210]

Another U.N. staff member, Layla al-Mulla, was an
administrative assistant to de Mello's chief of staff, Nadia Yunis, who was
also killed. Al-Mulla was sitting in her office across the hall from de Mello's
office when the bomb exploded:

It was exactly 4:30 because I looked at my computer. I
felt nothing at that moment; I just heard something. We were used to heavy
bombs and explosions, and this sounded far away-like a thump. I was near the
window, actually the whole wall was window, and I felt something come down on
me from behind. I just lowered my head instinctively and everything came
crashing down on me. The whole place was upside down. My mind didn't register,
so I left my desk and stood next to a column. I looked down and saw a black
cloud growing up towards me. I tried to leave the room, but I made it a few
steps, and it was completely dark. I waited for it to clear, but it was dusty,
and debris was everywhere, filling my lungs. I saw a crack in the concrete
ceiling, and the building was tilting. It was clear that the door to Sergio's
office was crushed. I tried to get out.

I didn't know what to do. I went down and saw the injured
people, the blood, the dust all over the place. People were stuck under rubble.
The more I moved out of the building, the more destruction I saw. It was chaos.
There were people dead all around, people screaming out in pain.[211]

Twenty-two people died in all. Fifteen of the victims worked
for the United Nations-five Iraqis and ten international staff. Of the non-U.N.
employees, three were Iraqis and four were foreigners.[212]

Responsibility for the bombing of the U.N. headquarters
remains unclear because three armed groups have claimed to have committed the
attack; the CPA and Iraqi government alleged a fourth. On August 21, a
previously unknown group called the Armed Vanguards of Muhammad's Second Army,
al-Ramadi branch, claimed responsibility in a statement sent to the al-`Arabiya
television station, where it was viewed by other news agencies.[213] "Where
was the United Nations when the United States
and Britain waged war on Iraq
and killed Iraqi children, elderly men and women?" the statement said. "As to
its work in helping Iraq,
all it is doing is paying monthly salaries to its employees from our oil." Two
days later, Lebanese LBC Television reported that Jaysh Muhammad, which may be
the same group, had claimed responsibility. In an audio taped statement the
station received, members of the group's `Abdullah Bin-Iyad Brigade said they
had bombed the United Nations as well as shelled the Presidential Palace,
occupied by the Multi-National Force, numerous times.[214]

In May 2004, a reporter for the Institute for War and Peace
Reporting (IWPR) interviewed a man "credibly claiming" to be a spokesman for
Jaysh Muhammad. When asked about his position regarding the bombing of the
United Nations, the man replied, "There is no real United Nations. It is an
organization completely controlled by the United
States and its resolutions always serve U.S. interests."[215] On August 25, 2004,
the London-based al-Hayat newspaper
reported a statement by the Abu-Hafs al-Masri Brigades, a group affiliated with
al-Qaeda that claimed responsibility for the bombing as "a lesson to the United States."
The U.N. headquarters was working "in collaboration with the criminal Saddam
Hussein, the main U.N. center for starving the Iraqi people for twelve years,"
the statement said.[216]

In February 2004, Coalition Provisional Authority officials
and the U.S.
military said they had obtained intelligence and evidence that linked al-Qaeda
and Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi to the U.N. bombing, but they did not provide
information to support their claim.[217]
The U.S. State Department later accused al-Zarqawi's Jama`at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad
for the attack, again without providing evidence.[218]
Finally, on January
15, 2005, the Iraqi authorities arrested Sami Muhammad Ali Said al-Jaaf,
also known as Abu Omar al-Kurdi, who they claimed was a top lieutenant in
al-Qaeda. According to an Iraqi government statement, al-Jaaf confessed to
preparing thirty-two car bombs, including the car used in the U.N. attack.[219]

One month after the U.N. bombing, on September 22, 2003, another
bomb exploded in a parking lot approximately fifty meters from the Canal Hotel
gate, killing a U.N. security guard and two Iraqi policemen. By November, the
U.N.'s international staff had withdrawn from Baghdad.

The attacks have greatly limited the United Nation's ability
to work. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), established by Security
Council Resolution 1500 in August 2003, moved to neighboring Jordan. The international staff
that returned to Baghdad
was restricted to the U.S.-protected Green Zone. And the Baghdad office was burdened by the exorbitant
costs of security and logistics. Of 256 staff in Baghdad in February 2005, more than 200 were
security.

Insurgents have also targeted the International Committee of
the Red Cross, which has been in Iraq since the start of the
Iran-Iraq war in 1980. Around 11:00 a.m. on July 22, 2003, gunmen shot and killed
ICRC communications technician Nadisha Yasassri Runmuthu just north of al-Hilla
and seriously wounded his Iraqi driver, Mazin Hamid Rashid.[220]
On January 13,
2005, an ICRC driver went missing near Abu Ghraib, and his body was
found the following day. The unnamed victim was an Iraqi national in his
forties who had four children, the ICRC said.[221]

On the morning of October 27, 2003, a vehicle with explosives
detonated at the ICRC headquarters in Baghdad, killing twelve, including two
local ICRC staff, Zuhair `Abdullah Ahmad al-Shaikhli and Dekran Gregor Dekran
Hagopian.[222] An ICRC
driver was present at the headquarters during the attack. He told Human Rights
Watch what he saw:

We were sitting in the ICRC building and were outside the
reception. I saw how the car bomb entered. You know what happens. I was
surprised that a big vehicle could get so close. One guy named Omar was at the
reception. He shot at the car. Then it exploded. I saw all the body parts on
the wall. I was outside the building. Eight guys in the reception were killed The
bodies were all over. It was terrible, very awful. You can imagine if you see a
body covered in blood and some parts are stuck on the wall and the ground is
covered in blood.[223]

The bombing severely affected the ICRC's work, forcing it to
reduce its international staff, which made up about thirty of the
organization's 600 employees in Iraq.[224] "In view
of the direct attacks on the ICRC in 2003 and of the general security situation
in Iraq,
the organization was forced to adapt to an exceptional modus operandi there," the ICRC said. The organization maintained a
presence of only Iraqi staff, supported by a team of foreign staffers operating
out of Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq
and Jordan.[225]

The attack against an established independent organization
like the ICRC, which had provided services in Iraq
for the past twenty-three years, forced other humanitarian organizations to
question whether they could operate safely in Iraq. Many took the bombing as a
message, even though no one claimed responsibility for the attack, that all
organizations providing assistance were susceptible to attack.

"This and earlier attacks seriously put in doubt the very
possibility of providing independent humanitarian aid in Iraq," said the organization
Doctors Without Borders/Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF). The statement
continued, "deliberately targeting civilians and independent aid agencies is a
war crime. The perpetrators of this attack on the ICRC, an organization with a
long history of providing humanitarian assistance to Iraqis, confront us with
the question whether all aid organizations could be targets. The attack was an
assault on the very heart of humanitarianism."[226]

Since the ICRC attack, insurgent groups have threatened,
attacked, abducted and killed staff members of various humanitarian
organizations. While the most publicized cases are of foreigners, most notably
the CARE country director Margaret Hassan (see below), the vast majority of
victims have been Iraqi employees.

Human Rights Watch spoke with three Iraqi staff of
international organizations who fled to other countries after receiving threats
from armed groups, either in writing or in person. Each of these people knew
colleagues and friends who had also fled after receiving a threat. In some
cases, the threats were criminal rather than political, because gangs
apparently believe that Iraqis working for foreign organizations can afford to
pay a ransom. The family of one United Nations employee, for example, received
a note that said, "give us $5,000 or we will kill all your sons and [your]
daughter."[227]

But in some cases, the threats were clearly political and,
when unheeded, resulted in the murder of a humanitarian worker. Muhammad Hushyar
Salim Ahmad Dizayi, aged thirty-four and single, for example, was Mosul head of the
humanitarian aid organization, World Vision, a U.S.-based Christian relief and
development organization that was working on school rehabilitation.

-Unknown
individuals in the city warned him to quit his job, his family told Human
Rights Watch, but Dizayi decided to continue working with the organization. On September 29, 2004,
unknown gunmen shot and killed him while he sat in a Mosul caf.

According to Dizayi's father, who was in Arbil
at the time of the murder, a witness told him that two cars drove up and shot
his only son in a caf near the university. He went to the Mosul hospital and police the next day, but
found no officials willing to help. "No one was at the hospital. I even went to
the police," he said. "They said we cannot come with you because we are afraid
of the terrorists. They said they will attack you again if you come to talk
with us about this." At the hospital there was only one cleaner, who said,
"Don't cry or shout because the terrorists will come again."[228]

Another targeted killing occurred on November 3, 2004, when
gunmen shot and killed an employee of Caritas Iraq, a Roman Catholic church-based
organization that helped underprivileged families with medicine, social
counseling and food.[229] The
victim was `Ala' Andraus, director of the
organization's BabyWellCenter
in Baghdad's
al-Dura neighborhood. A pupil at the al-Batul secondary school for girls in the
Mekanik section of al-Dora, who knew Andraus because he had given food to a
poor family in her building, told Human Rights Watch:

We were studying in the courtyard when we heard the
screeching of tires, the crashing of the fence and the confusion of shooting. We
were about to go inside because we thought the school was under attack-the
school had been threatened before. We had received messages that Christian
girls must wear veils. One of the cars came into the school yard, knocking down
part of the wall. The other car just shot and sped away. The police guarding the
school shot back.

The first car had a driver and a guy named `Ala'. His wife and child
were in the back. The driver died. `Ala'
was injured, and he died that night. From upstairs through the window I saw
them taking the bodies out of the car. The driver was dead, and 'Ala' had been hit in the
jaw, and it was blown apart. His wife had fainted from the shock.[230]

Caritas was forced to close the BabyWellCenter in al-Dora, which had treated
malnourished children. "There was an immediate impact. There was tension-fear
among the staff. They were all shocked," Sebastian Deschamps, the Caritas Desk
Officer for the Middle East, told Human Rights
Watch. "When one of your colleagues is shot dead, it's traumatic."[231]

By April 2004, insurgents launched a spate of abductions of
foreigners working in Iraq,
including some humanitarian workers. On September 7, armed men abducted Simona
Pari and Simona Torretta from the Italian organization Un Ponte per Baghdad ("Bridge to Baghdad"),
as well as two Iraqi staff, Dr. Ra`d al-`Ali
and Mahnaz Bassam. They released them unharmed three weeks later in
circumstances that remain unclear, and it is possible their abduction was
criminally motivated rather than political.[232]

The case that generated the most international attention was
the abduction and killing of CARE country director Margaret Hassan, who had
married an Iraqi man, become an Iraqi citizen and lived in Iraq providing humanitarian
assistance for twenty-five years. CARE had been active in Iraq for the previous fourteen years,
with Hassan as the organization's local director since 1996. She was among the
very few expatriate humanitarian workers who stayed in Baghdad throughout the 2003 U.S.-led
invasion.

-
According
to CARE, armed men abducted Hassan in Baghdad
at 7:30 a.m. on October
19, 2004, as she was being driven to work. A video later broadcast
on al-Jazeera showed a terrified Hassan calling for the withdrawal of British
troops and the release of female prisoners in Iraq. "Please help me. Please, the
British people, ask Tony Blair to take the troops out of Iraq, and not to bring them to Baghdad. That's why people like Mr. Bigley
and myself are being caught, and maybe we will die like Mr. Bigley. Please,
please, I beg you," she said, referring to Kenneth Bigley, a British engineer
who had been beheaded on October 8.[233]

On November 5, al-Qaeda in Iraq issued a statement calling for
Hassan's release, "unless there is proof of her being an agent." If her captors
"hand over this hostage to us we would release her immediately unless it is
proven that she plotted against Muslims," the statement said.[234]

On November 16, CARE announced that they believed Hassan was
dead, although no body had been found. "It is with profound sadness that we
have learnt of the existence of a video in which it appears that our colleague
Margaret Hassan has been killed," a short statement said.[235]

In May 2005, Iraqi and U.S. forces said they had arrested
eleven men suspected of involvement in Hassan's death. Five of the men admitted
complicity in the murder, the Iraqi police said.[236]

Hassan's killing sent further shockwaves through the
humanitarian community. Despite regular attacks on humanitarian workers since
summer 2003, humanitarian organizations active in Iraq had assumed Hassan was safe
due to her long-standing family and professional ties to the country. The
murder showed that no one, even a woman with deep ties to Iraq, was beyond reach.

CARE announced the closure of its Iraqi operations on October 28, 2003.[237] "It's
sad to close such an operation that had been there for so long and had helped
so many people," said `Alia Khalifa, the program support coordinator for CARE
Iraq, now based in Amman.
"All our activities had to be stopped, and it was going directly to the
people."[238]

Other international humanitarian organizations followed
suit. On November 9, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which had been
in Iraq for eighteen months working on water systems, sanitation and health
facilities, vaccinations and rebuilding schools, announced it was phasing its
Iraq programs out by the end of the year. "Regretfully, we had to recognize the
reality that due to security constraints, we are less and less able to address Iraq's needs," said IRC's director for the
Middle East and Asia, Mark Bartolini. "The deteriorating
security conditions reveal a trend toward attacks against Iraqi civilians who
associate themselves with international agencies, as well as against the
international staff of those organizations."[239]

That same month, World Vision, which had lost its director
in Mosul six weeks before, announced it too was
ending operations in Iraq.
In Iraq
for eighteen months improving schools, hospitals, clinics and water supplies,
World Vision said it was too difficult to maintain security. "We have realized
that you can't have twenty-four hour security guards, and even now humanitarian
agencies like ours, like CARE-even the Red Cross with its studied neutrality
for 150 years-are being targeted," said Tim Costello, chief executive of World
Vision Australia.[240]

IX. Attacks on Media

Insurgent groups have attacked journalists with bombs,
abductions, executions and targeted killings. The vast majority of victims are
Iraqis working as local journalists or as reporters, drivers, cameramen and
translators for international media. Foreign journalists have also lost their
lives. Insurgents have sought to justify some of these attacks on the grounds
that the journalists were collaborating with foreign forces as informants or
spies, or that all foreigners in Iraq are legitimate targets.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, in 2004
and the first five months of 2005, insurgent groups had abducted thirty
journalists.[241] As of June 12, 2005,
the groups had released twenty-eight of these journalists and killed two (Enzo
Baldoni and Ra'ida Wazzan).[242]

According to Reporters Sans Frontires, as of May 2005,
twenty-nine journalists and media assistants (twenty-three men and six women)
had been kidnapped since the war began, six of them Iraqis. As of August 2005,
insurgents had released twenty-five of these people unharmed and executed four
others (Enzo Baldoni, Ra'ida Wazzan, Hussam Hilal Sarsam and Ahmad Jabbar
Hashim)[243] Insurgent
groups killed additional journalists in armed attacks.

The precarious situation faced by journalists kidnapped by
insurgents is evident from an incident in al-Falluja on October 24, 2004, when
unidentified armed men detained an Iraqi translator and French freelance
photographer. According to the translator, who spoke with Human Rights Watch
but wished to remain anonymous, five armed men held them for five to six hours
at a cement factory in the town's industrial zone. "We don't usually kill
people who haven't done anything," he said his captors told him. "We only deal
with people who work with the Americans or the Iraqi National Guard." The armed
men, who did not identify themselves, said they would hand the two journalists
over to the "Consultative Council of the Mujahadin," headed by Abu Ahmad, who
also ran Muhammad's Army. Instead they released them unharmed.[244]

Other abducted journalists were not so lucky. On May 29, 2004,
gunmen in Baghdad
abducted and killed two staff members of the Iraqi daily al-Sabah al-Jadid ("The New Morning"). According to the paper's
editor, Isma'il Zayir, a group of men arrived at his home in a police car and
two civilian cars, asking him to come to the police station for questioning
about a crime. He went inside to change his clothes and, when he returned, his
driver and bodyguard, Samia `Abd al-Jabbar and Mahmud Da'wud, were gone. Police
found the bodies of both men later that day in another part of Baghdad. Zayir had
previously been editor of al-Sabah
("The Morning"), a newspaper
established with U.S.
government funds.[245]

On August 20, 2004, the Italian Enzo Baldoni, a freelance
writer working for Diario news
magazine, went missing as he was driving to the southern city of al-Najaf,
where U.S.
forces were battling Mahdi Army forces. In a video broadcast August 24 on al-Jazeera, the Islamic Army in Iraq
said they could not guarantee Baldoni's safety if Italy did not withdraw its
3,000 troops from Iraq within forty-eight hours.[246]
Two days later, al-Jazeera reported
that it had received two photographs that showed Baldoni dead, saying it did
not air the images out of respect for his family.[247]

On February 20, 2005, masked gunmen in Mosul abducted Ra'ida Muhammad Wazzan, aged
thirty-five, a news presenter for the Iraqi state television al-`Iraqiya,
together with her ten-year-old son. The abductors released her son on February
23 but, two days after that, Wazzan's body was found on a Mosul street with multiple gunshot wounds to
the head. According to her husband, insurgents had threatened Wazzan with death
several times, demanding that she quit her job. The week before her abduction,
the al-`Iraqiya station was struck by mortars, wounding three technicians. According
to press reports, al-Qaeda in Iraq
claimed responsibility for the mortar attack, but it is not clear who killed
Wazzan.[248]

In some cases, insurgent groups have killed Iraqi
journalists on the street. On October 14, 2004, gunmen in a car shot and
killed Dina Muhammad Hassan, aged thirty-eight, a reporter for al-Hurriya Television. According to a
colleague who was with her at the time, three men in a blue Oldsmobile drove by
and opened fire as Hassan and he waited to be picked up for work outside
Hassan's Baghdad home. "Collaborator! Collaborator!" they yelled as they shot. Al-Hurriya is the station of the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two main Kurdish political parties,
and the party of Iraq's
current president Jalal Talabani. According to colleagues, Hassan had received
three letters warning her to quit her job.[249]

The next day, October 15, gunmen in Mosul killed a twenty-two-year-old Iraqi
photographer named Karam Hussain, who worked for the European Press Agency and
the Italian ANSA. According to Reporters Sans Frontires, four masked gunmen
shot him outside his home.[250]

On October 30, 2004, a car bomb exploded at the Baghdad
bureau of al-`Arabiya, a Dubai-based
twenty-four-hour television news channel, killing seven persons, including five
staff members: `Ali `Adnan, a security guard, Hassan Alwan, an engineer, Ramziyya
Mushi and Alahin Hussain, kitchen staff, and Nabil Hussein, a gardener. According
to al-`Arabiya, fourteen other
employees, including five journalists, were hurt. Two other Saudi-owned news
stations also used the office, the satellite channel al-Akhbariya and al-`Arabiya's
sister channel, Middle East Broadcasting (MBC).

In a statement on the Internet, the group Thawrat al-`Ishrin
Brigades (1920 Revolution Brigades) at first claimed responsibility. However,
in a video later broadcast by al-Arabiya,
four masked gunmen from the group denied they were behind the attack.[251] On
October 31, a previously unknown group called Sarayya al-Shuhada' al-Jihadiyya
fi al-`Iraq(Jihadist Martyrs Brigade
in Iraq) said in an Internet statement that it had conducted the attack for the
station's "cooperation with the Americans and their allies." The group said it
would "punish those who work with these news agencies and channels one after
the other or we will kidnap them and slaughter them like sheep if they side
with the infidel American occupiers."[252]

Al-`Arabiya's general manager, the prominent Saudi
journalist `Abd al-Rahman al-Rashid, has spoken publicly against insurgent
attacks on civilians. "We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct
journalists, murder civilians, explode buses," he wrote in the London-based
newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. "We
cannot accept them as related to us, whatever the sufferings they claim to
justify their criminal deeds. These are the people who have smeared Islam and
stained its image."[253]

On June 18, 2005, gunmen shot and seriously wounded al-`Arabiya'sBaghdad correspondent, Jawad Kazim, aged
thirty-seven. Gunmen tried to abduct Kazim as he left a restaurant in Baghdad, his colleagues
said.[254] According
to the station, a group calling itself Jund al-Sahabah fi al-`Iraq (Prophet's
Companions Army in Iraq) claimed responsibility for the attack because of al-`Arabiya's editorial policy and
Kazim's alleged anti-Sunni bent.[255]
According to Reuters, the group that claimed responsibility called itself Jama`at
Jund al-Sahaba (Soldiers of the Prophet's Companions). "We claim responsibility
for the assassination attempt of the evil Shi'ite Jawad Kadhim," a statement
posted on a website often used by militants reportedly said. "Al-`Arabiya channel has harmed Sunnis in
Iraq
and is the tongue of Americans and dirty Shi'ites in [Iraqi Prime Minister
Ibrahim] Ja`fari's government."[256]

Many of the Iraqi journalists and support staff who have
died in attacks were working for international media as drivers and
translators, but also as reporters and fact-finders who could more easily
navigate Iraq's
dangerous terrain. On January 27, 2004, for example, gunmen opened fire on a
two-car convoy of CNN, killing an Iraqi driver and a translator/producer. According
to CNN, the vehicles were headed north toward Baghdad from al-Hilla when a rust-colored
Opel approached from behind. A single gunman opened fire on one of the vehicles
from the sunroof with an AK-47 assault rifle. Yassir Khatab, the driver, aged
twenty-five, and Duraid `Issa Muhammad, a twenty-seven-year-old father of two,
died of multiple gunshot wounds. A bullet grazed the head of CNN cameraman
Scott McWhinnie.[257]

On March 24, 2004, gunmen fatally shot an Iraqi translator
and fixer working for Time Magazine. Omar
Hashim Kamal, aged forty-eight, was shot four times as he drove to work, Time
said. He died two days later, leaving a wife and four-year-old son.[258]

Insurgent groups have also targeted foreign journalists in Iraq, often using them to pressure their
government to leave Iraq.
The three most recent abduction cases have all ended in the journalists'
release after lengthy periods of illegal detention. On March 4, 2005, insurgents
freed the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena from Il Manifesto after one month in captivity. Just after her release, U.S. soldiers near BaghdadAirport
opened fire on her car, killing an Italian intelligence agent who had
negotiated her release. The U.S.
military said the car failed to stop as it approached a checkpoint. Sgrena
disputed that account.[259]

A group called the Islamic Jihad Organization said it had
kidnapped Sgrena and threatened to kill her if Italian forces did not leave Iraq. "We
call upon our brothers in the Association of Muslim Scholars to be careful in
their call to release the Italian POW," a statement posted on the Internet
said. "We are still investigating the POW and the judicial committee in the
organization will take its decision on that soon." The Association of Muslim
Scholars had previously called for Sgrena's release, saying, "she was doing a
humanitarian job in Iraq
and has nothing to do with the occupation forces."[260]
Other Iraqi organizations and media also had called on insurgents to release
Sgrena, along with the French journalist Florence Aubenas, who was being held
at the time (see below). In an appeal on February 7, al-Jazeera stated that, "kidnapping journalists while doing their
job is considered a blatant violation of human rights."[261]

On May 22, an armed group released three Romanian
journalists and their Iraqi-American guide after nearly two months in
captivity-the reporter Marie Jeanne Ion and cameraman Sorin Miscoci for
Bucharest-based Prima TV, reporter Ovidiu Ohanesian for the daily Romania Libera and their guide Muhammad
Monaf.[262] The four
had gone missing in Baghdad
on March 28. On April 23, a previously unknown group calling itself Mu`adh bin
Jabal[263] claimed
responsibility for the abduction in a video broadcast on al-Jazeera, in which
they demanded that Romania pull its 800 troops out of Iraq.[264]Romania did not agree to
withdraw its troops, but the group later said it had freed the hostages after
an appeal by Romania's
Muslims and a prominent Saudi preacher. U.S.
authorities in Iraq
are reportedly holding the guide Monaf under suspicion that he participated in
the abduction, and Romanian authorities have arrested an alleged accomplice, `Umar
Hayssam.[265]

-

On June 11, unknown insurgents released the
French journalist Florence Aubenas of the newspaper Libration and her Iraqi translator and guide Hussain Hanun al-Sa`di
after 158 days in captivity.[266] The
insurgents had abducted Aubenas, a veteran war reporter, and al-Sa`di, a
colonel in the Iraqi Air Force until 1991, after they left the Melia Mansour
Hotel in Baghdad on January
5, 2005. Aubenas was working on a story about Iraqis displaced by
the latest U.S.
offensive in al-Falluja.[267] On March
1, a released video showed Aubenas pleading for help. "My name is Florence
Aubenas. I'm French. I'm a journalist with Libration,"
she said, looking frail and distraught. "My health is very bad. I am very bad
psychologically also."[268] Upon her
release, she told reporters that her conditions in captivity had been "severe."
Most of the time she was held in a basement wearing a blindfold and her wrists
and ankles tied.[269]After her
release, the three Romanian journalists released on May 22 said they had been
held together with Aubenas, but Aubenas declined to comment on their claim.[270]

Some insurgent groups have conducted armed attacks against
foreign journalists. On May 27, 2004, insurgents killed two freelance Japanese
journalists, Shinsuke Hashida and Kotaro Ogawa, an uncle and nephew team, with
their Iraqi translator, Muhammad Najmuddin, as they returned to Baghdad from the southern
town of al-Samawa, where they had visited a Japanese military base. According
to press reports, gunmen in al-Mahmudiyya opened fire on the car, which then
crashed into a tree and caught fire.[271]

On May
7, 2004, gunmen shot and killed a leading Polish war correspondent,
Waldemar Milewicz, and his Polish-Algerian colleague, Mounir Bouamrane, both
from Polish state television. Gunmen opened fire on their car as they drove
through al-Latifiyya south of Baghdad.
According to the driver, who survived, a car chased them down from behind and
gunmen opened fire into the car. The journalists' car spun around and stopped,
but the attacking car turned and opened fire again.[272]
"Suddenly we found ourselves under heavy machine-gun fire," recalled Polish
cameraman Jerzy Ernst, who was injured in the attack. "All of us crouched. The
driver didn't stop but the windows were shattered." He continued, "Mounir and
the driver jumped out of the car and were trying to pull out Milewicz but then
they started shooting again."[273] The team
was driving to a Polish military base south of Baghdad, Ernst said. At the time, Poland had about 2,400 troops in Iraq.

International humanitarian law protects from attack both
civilian journalists and "war correspondents" who accompany a state's armed
forces, so long as they are not taking a direct part in hostilities.[274] Protocol
I of the Geneva Conventions, which applies during international armed conflicts
and occupations, states that journalists in areas of armed conflict "shall be
considered as civilians."[275] Likewise,
journalists during internal armed conflicts are considered to be civilians as a
matter of customary international humanitarian law.[276]

This protection extends to journalists who are embedded with
an armed force. According to ICRC Commentary to Article 79 of Protocol I, "a
journalist, who is undoubtedly a civilian, does not lose this status by
entering an area of armed conflict on a professional mission, even if he is
accompanying the armed forces or if he takes advantage of their logistic
support."[277] Journalists
in war zones, embedded with a military force or on their own, are putting
themselves in danger. Their accidental death as collateral damage in an attack
on a military target is not a violation of international humanitarian law,
unless the attacker made no effort to discriminate between combatants and
civilians.

X. Attacks on Intellectuals and Professionals

Since late 2003, various armed groups have targeted Iraq's
intellectual and professional class, including professors, doctors and lawyers.
The goals are diverse. In some cases, abductions are criminally motivated,
because professionals are believed to have more money to pay in ransom. But
some killings appear politically motivated, either because the victim had
expressed support for the U.S.-led invasion or criticism of the insurgency, or
because the attackers believed the person held such views.

Some Iraqi academics see the attacks as a way to destroy Iraq's
intellectual elite. "The victims cover a wide spectrum of research interests,
different politics and different religious convictions. The only common
denominator is their excellence," said Sa`adun `Issa, vice-chancellor of al-NahrainUniversity
in Baghdad. "I
think there's a plan to strip Iraq
of its scientific backbone."[278]

"We think it's politically motivated," a senior Education
Ministry official said. The attacks are a devastating blow-"not only because of
the number killed, but because of their quality."[279]

The intimidation and killing of intellectuals and
professionals impedes governance, complicates work for security forces and
weakens the economy, according to Anthony H. Cordesman, an insurgency expert at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies in WashingtonD.C.
The pattern of attacks on professionals, he says, "exacerbates the feeling of
insecurity to the point where people lose faith in the Iraqi government,
Coalition, and political process."[280]

Precise figures are difficult to obtain, but studies suggest
that doctors and academics are particularly at risk. According to a study by
the Iraqi Ministry of Health concluded in April 2005, armed groups have
abducted between 160 and 300 Iraqi doctors since April 2003, and killed more
than twenty-five, although the study did not distinguish between criminal and
politically motivated attacks. Nearly 1,000 doctors have fled the country, the
study said, with an average of thirty more following each month.[281] To stem
the outflow, the ministry broadcast a public service announcement on television
in spring 2005, with a message that said: "Dear Citizens, please do not kill
doctors-you may need them one day."[282]
In May 2005, the Interior Ministry gave doctors the right to carry a weapon for
self-defense.[283]

Professors at Iraq's once prestigious
universities and technical colleges are also under attack. According to an
April 2005 United Nations University report, assassins have killed forty-eight
academics since 2003, and many more teachers and professors brave daily
threats.[284] According
to the Iraqi Minister of Higher Education, as of June 2005, attackers had
killed more than sixty professors since the beginning of the war, although he
did not specify how they died. The highest percentage of those had scientific
backgrounds, he said.[285]

One of the first victims was Falah Hussein, deputy dean of
the college of sciences at al-MustansiriyaUniversity in Baghdad, who unknown gunmen killed in May
2003. Next was the assassination by unknown gunmen of Dr. Muhammad al-Rawi,
president of BaghdadUniversity, that July.[286]

One of the more prominent cases was the killing of `Abd al-Latif al-Mayah, a human rights
advocate and political science professor at al-MustansiriyaUniversity.
On January 19, 2004,
eight masked gunmen stopped him as he drove to work. They pulled him to the
street, the Iraqi police said, and shot him dead in front of his bodyguard and
another university lecturer.[287]

On June 19, 2005, unknown gunmen shot and killed engineer
Sattar Sabbar al-Khazraji, a professor at the TechnologyUniversity in Baghdad. According to the Iraqi newspaper al-Sharqiyah, two men on a motorcycle
shot al-Khazraji in front of his house in the western Baghdad area of al-Hurriyah al-Thaniyah.[288]

Most recently, in the last week of August, three more Baghdad academics died. According
to Azzaman, an Iraqi daily newspaper, unknown gunmen killed Zaki al-Ani
from al-MustansiriyyaUniversity's College
of Arts, and Hashim `Abd al-Amir from
the College of Education on August 27 near the
university's main entrance. A third professor, Samir Yalda of the College of Economics and Administration had been
kidnapped two days earlier, and his body was found the same day.[289]

The violence has hit other cities as well. In November 2003,
unknown men reportedly assassinated Asa`ad al-Sharida, dean of the engineering
college in Basra.
Two months later, assailants stabbed to death Muhammad Qasim, a teacher in Basra's technical college.[290]

In Mosul on June 22, 2004,
unknown assailants killed the dean of MosulUniversity's LawSchool,
Laila `Abdullah Sa`ad, together with her husband Munir al-Khairu. According to
the Iraqi police, the attackers slit both their throats.[291]

Hundreds of academics and professionals have been threatened
with death and told to leave Iraq.
According to the Association of University Teachers, 2,000 professors have left
Iraq
since 2003, joining the 10,000 professors the association says left the country
in the twelve years after the Gulf War.[292]

"I was given one week," the director of the Institute of Radiotherapy
and Nuclear Medicine in Baghdad
told one journalist. "But I can't quit. If I step down, nobody would come and
take my place."[293] Others
have taken the threats to heart and fled the country, usually for Damascus or Amman.

"We are losing the brain power of our most brilliant
doctors," said Dr. Sami Salman, director of the SpecialCareHospital
at Baghdad's MedicalCity
complex. "You just can't replace them overnight."[294]

XI. Attacks on Women

Some insurgent groups have targeted women who are
politicians, civil servants, journalists, women's rights activists or who work
as cleaners or translators for foreign governments or militaries. They have
also attacked women for what they considered "immoral" or "un-Islamic" behavior,
like dancing, socializing with men or not wearing a hijab, the Islamic headscarf. And some groups have abducted and at
times killed foreign women to pressure governments or humanitarian
organizations into leaving Iraq.

Not all of these attacks are on account of gender. Many of
these attacks appear to have been motivated primarily by the victim's perceived
connection to the foreign military presence or the current Iraqi government, as
described in the chapters in this report that cover those targeted groups. The
attacks against women's rights activists and women who exhibited behavior
deemed "immoral" or "un-Islamic," however, do seem motivated by the fact that
the targets were women or were helping women.

In general, the violence and lack of security, as well as
religious and cultural conservatism, are having a major impact on Iraqi women,
who once enjoyed a prominent role in their country's public life. The danger of
kidnappings and assaults keeps many professional women at home, and limits
their participation in the country's evolving political institutions

According to a January 2005 report by Women for Women
International, the violence is preventing Iraqi women from playing a role in
civic life:

Women with Western dress and progressive ideas have been
attacked. The abduction and murders of these prominent women have sent a ripple
of fear through local communities. Though the press has covered the stories of
high-profile foreign aid workers, Iraqi women have seen members of their own
communities-pharmacists, lawyers, councilwomen -assassinated. The effect is
chilling and threatens the participation of Iraq's most educated women.[295]

The report continues, "Fear of violence, abduction and rape
have emptied the streets of women and caused disruptions to education as
children are also increasingly kept at home. Growing numbers of women are also
leaving the country."

The number of known attacks against women reflects only a
fraction of the real figure. The majority of attacks remain unreported due to
fear and social taboos, especially those involving crimes of sexual violence.[296]

Like many of the attacks on men documented in this report,
there is a nexus between politics, religion and crime. Insurgent groups have
not always claimed responsibility for attacks on women, so it is not always
clear if a criminal or political group committed the attack. The abduction of
women professionals is a common occurrence that often ends with a ransom being
paid.[297]

At least four prominent women politicians and government officials
have been targeted between March 2003 and July 2005-'Aqila al-Hashimi, Salama
al-Khafaji, Nasrin Barwari and Lamia Abid Khaduri al-Sagri (al-Hashimi and
al-Sagri died)-although they were most likely attacked because of their
political activity rather than gender (see chapter VI of this report, "Attacks
on Government Officials and Politicians"). Attacks on lower-ranking women
officials, however, seem to have been motivated by their work on behalf of
women.

-

On November 20, 2004, insurgents in Baghdad shot and killed an adviser at the
Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works and a women's rights activist, Amal
al-Ma'amalchi, together with her secretary, bodyguard and driver. According to
press accounts, gunmen opened fire on Amal al-Ma'amalchi's car as she went to
work.[298] "An Opel
car with four masked passengers on board attacked another white car which was
driving ahead, and which had three or four passengers inside," a witness told
al-Jazeera.[299] Amal al-Ma'amalachi
was co-founder of the Advisory Committee for Women's Affairs in Iraq
and the Independent Iraqi Women's Assembly-an organization established after
April 2003.[300]

Other female politicians and government employees have
reported receiving threats on account of their work in defense of women's
rights. According to an Amnesty International report on women in Iraq,
unidentified individuals threatened a female member of the Interim Governing
Council, Dr. Raja Khuza`i, in early 2004 after she opposed amendments to the
Personal Status Law (governing marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child
custody), which would have replaced civil personal status laws with Shari`a, or Islamic law.[301] "There
was a proposal, Resolution 137, which was against women's rights, insisting
that marriages and family law and whatever had to be under the syariah [shari`a],"
Khuza'i told an interviewer. "I succeeded in having this resolution cancelled
in February. After that I received so many death threats, telephone calls,
letters, to me and to my family."[302]

Yanar Muhammad, who founded the Organization of Women's
Freedom in Iraq,
said she received death threats in early 2004 after she defended women's rights
on Iraqi television. "Stop speaking out for women's rights, or we will kill
you," an e-mail signed by the Jaysh al-Sahaba (Army of the Prophet's
Companions) reportedly said. "They said, because of my psychologically
disturbed ideas, they would have to kill me and crucify me," Yanar Muhammad
told the press. "It sounded to me like a serious warning."[303]

One woman who founded two arts and culture organizations in Baghdad said that she
also received death threats by e-mail. "We will kill you all," the e-mail
warned, signed "Zarqawi." She told Human Rights Watch: "The first day was
terrible. I didn't tell my family because I was afraid they would force me to
leave the country."[304]

According to Amnesty International's 2005 report on women in Iraq, several
women's centers established with U.S. government funds had to reduce their
activities after threats and attacks, although it is not clear if armed groups
threatened them because of their activity with women or because they received
funding from the United States. Amira Salih, manager of the Zainab al-Hawra'
center in Karbala,
which gave women classes in computers, catering and sewing, said she resigned
after getting death threats.[305]
On March 9, 2004,
gunmen opened fire on a car carrying center staffers and killed two of the
women who helped found the center, an Iraqi and an American, together with an
American male press officer from the CPA. Fern Holland,
a women's rights coordinator for the CPA who was the driving force behind the
center, and her assistant Salwa Oumashi were driving with Bob Zangas from Karbala to Baghdad
when armed gunmen attacked. "I pulled them out of the car with my hands," said
the al-Hilla police chief, Brigadier Qaed al-Ma'muri, who knew Holland. "Fern had been
driving," he said, "and most of the bullets targeted her. The man was shot in
the head, but the bullets were fired 360 degrees around the car. Probably thirty
or more."[306]

Armed groups have attacked women because of behavior deemed
immoral or contrary to Islamic codes. On March 8, 2005, for example, unknown gunmen
reportedly shot and killed three women as they stood on a street corner in Baghdad's SadrCity. According to Iraqi
police, an unspecified religious movement had accused them of being
prostitutes.[307]

According
to Newsweek magazine, armed groups
killed twenty women in Mosul and a dozen more in
Baghdad between
March 2003 and mid-January 2005. One example the article gives, confirmed by
other press accounts, is the abduction and death of Zina al-Qushtaini, a
divorced mother in her late thirties who ran a pharmacy in Baghdad and had many women activist friends. Gunmen
burst into her pharmacy last year, abducting al-Qushtaini and her business
partner Dr. Ziad Bahu. Their bodies appeared ten days later near a highway
south of Baghdad.
Bahu was beheaded and al-Qushtaini, shot in the head, was wearing a long black `abaya and a headscarf, which she did not
normally wear.[308]

XII. Abduction and Execution of Non-Iraqi Civilians

Some insurgent groups have repeatedly targeted non-Iraqi
civilians working in Iraq
as drivers, businesspeople, contractors, journalists and humanitarian workers. Abductions,
sometimes followed by execution, have been the most common abuse.

The goal of the abductions is often to pressure the victim's
government into removing its forces from Iraq, or other concessions, such as
the release of prisoners. Insurgent groups have also abducted drivers to force
a company to stop doing business in Iraq.

A common motivation behind the abductions is money. Non-Iraqis
are targeted because of the ransom from a country or a company that the
insurgents, or a criminal group, hope to extract.

Since April 2003, insurgent groups have abducted more than
200 non-Iraqis from at least twenty-two different countries.[309] The
abductors killed fifty-two of these people, and at least forty-three are still
missing.[310] The rest
were released.

The first reported summary execution of a non-Iraqi civilian
by an insurgent group resulting in death happened on April 14, 2004. A group
called the Mujahadin Brigades said it had detained four Italian civilian
security guards in al-Falluja, and it demanded that Italy
withdraw its military from Iraq
in order for them to be released. "The Italian government...should vow and give
guarantees to withdraw its forces from Iraq
and give a time schedule and to free Muslim clerics in Iraq," a voice on a video broadcast
on al-Jazeera said.[311] The
group eventually freed three of the men but they executed the fourth, Fabrizio
Quattrocchi.[312]

The executions of non-Iraqi civilians became headline news
in the international media the next month with the videotaped beheading of U.S.
businessman Nicholas Berg, aged twenty-six, who had been abducted in mid-April
2004. On May 11, a video circulated widely on the Internet, entitled "Abu Mus`ab
al-Zarqawi Shown Slaughtering an American." It showed a group of masked men
standing behind Berg, who sat on the ground in an orange jump-suit, similar to
those worn by detainees at GuantanamoBay. "For the mothers and
wives of American soldiers, we tell you that we offered the U.S. administration to exchange
this hostage with some of the detainees in Abu Ghraib and they refused," one of
five men wearing headscarves and black masks read from a statement. "So we tell
you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is
not redeemed except by blood and souls."[313]
One of the men then beheaded Berg with a large, curved knife. Millions of
Internet users around the world downloaded the video, making al-Zarqawi a
household name.[314]

In August 2004, Ansar al-Sunna abducted and executed twelve
Nepalese, who were working in Iraq
as cleaners and cooks for a Jordanian company, including one by beheading. On
August 31, the group posted pictures and video of the executions on the
Internet, with a statement that said they had been killed because they "came
from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve the Jews and the Christians."[315]

On September 16, 2004, armed men abducted three civil
engineers, two Americans and a Briton, from their home in the al-Mansour
neighborhood of Baghdad.[316] Two days
later, al-Zarqawi's al-Tawhid wal-Jihad group announced it would kill the
hostages-Eugene Armstrong, Jack Hensley and Kenneth Bigley-in forty-eight hours
if the U.S. did not release the Iraqi women it held in detention. After the
deadline passed, on September 20, a website used by radical Islamic groups
posted a video that showed the beheading of a man identified as Eugene
Armstrong. "You, sister, rejoice. God's soldiers are coming to get you out of
your chains and restore your purity by returning you to your mother and
father," the man said before grabbing the hostage and cutting his throat. "The
fate of the first infidel was cutting off the head before your eyes and ears.
You have a 24-hour opportunity. Abide by our demand in full and release all the
Muslim women, otherwise the head of the other will follow this one," the
speaker said.[317]

Twenty-four hours later, al-Tawhid wal-Jihad posted a
message that the other American, Jack Hensley, had also been killed. "Thank
God, the lions of the Tawhid and Jihad have slaughtered the second American
hostage at the expiration of the set deadline," the message said. "The British
hostage will face the same fate unless the British government does what's
necessary to free him."[318] The next
day, September 22, the British engineer Kenneth Bigley appeared in a video
posted to the Internet, pleading with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to:
"Please, please release the female prisoners that are held in Iraqi prisons."[319] The
group executed Bigley three weeks later.[320]

Some of the abductions were to pressure a foreign government
into withdrawing its forces from Iraq. In July 2004, for example,
the Islamic Army in Iraq
abducted the Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz, aged forty-six, and
threatened to kill him if the Philippine military did not withdraw from Iraq. On
July 12, the Philippine government announced it was withdrawing all of its
forces from Iraq
to save de la Cruz. "In response to your request, the Philippines ... will withdraw its
humanitarian forces as soon as possible," the government said.[321] A week
later the insurgents released de la Cruz.

Insurgents released another Filipino hostage on June 22, 2005,
after holding him for nearly eight months. According to media reports, a group
called Jaysh al-Mujahidin(Mujahadin
Army) released Robert Tarongoy, a thirty-one-year-old accountant for a Saudi
firm, after the Philippine government agreed to ban its nationals from
traveling to Iraq
and to adopt a new law that punished those who disobey the order.[322] The
group had abducted Tarongoy on November 1, 2004, along with five co-workers. The
group quickly released four of them, a Nepali and three Iraqis, but is believed
to still be holding the U.S.
citizen Roy Hallums, who worked for a Saudi company that does catering for the
Iraqi army.[323]

Other abducted non-Iraqis have pleaded in videos for
soldiers from their respective countries to leave Iraq, such as the Italian
journalist Enzo Baldoni in August 2004 (see chapter IX of this report, "Attacks
on Media") and the British-born director of CARE Margaret Hassan (see chapter VIII,
"Attacks on Humanitarian Organizations"), both of whom were killed.

The abductions of truck drivers are sometimes meant to
pressure a company into halting its business operations in Iraq. "This work is an abandonment
of Islam," two Sudanese truck drivers held by the Islamic Army in Iraq
said in a March 2005 video. "I advise others to leave any work with the
occupying infidel because the hand of justice will reach them wherever they
are."[324] The
group eventually released the two men.[325]

On June
7, 2005, a group using the name the `Ali bin Abi Talib Brigades
warned that it would kill a Turkish businessman named `Ali Musluoglu it had
abducted and two of his companions "unless the Turkish authorities cease all
forms of logistical support to the U.S. military as well as cooperation with
U.S. firms doing business in Iraq."[326]
The group later said it would release their hostage if his family paid "several
million dollars," Musluoglu's brother said.[327]

In August 2004, an insurgent group made a demand not
directly related to the conflict in Iraq:
the Islamic Army in Iraq,
holding the French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, said
they wanted France
to lift its ban on headscarves in schools. The French government ignored
refused the demand, and the captors eventually released the two men.[328]

In summer 2005 insurgent groups began abducting foreign
diplomats from Middle Eastern countries-an apparent attempt to isolate Iraq's
government from the Arab and Muslim world-and three of them were killed. The
first victim was Egyptian envoy Ihab al-Sharif, who was seized on July 2, and
al-Qaeda in Iraq
later claimed he had been killed because of his country's allegiance "to Jews
and Christians."[329] The
previous month Egypt had
announced it would be the first Arab country to upgrade its mission in Iraq
to a full embassy. Then, on July 21, al-Qaeda in Iraq abducted two Algerian
diplomats, `Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi. A statement posted to the
Internet six days later claimed the group had killed the two men because of
their government's ties to the U.S.
and its crackdown on Islamic militants. "Didn't we warn you, O enemies of God,
not to be loyal to the Jews and the Christians and to stand by the side of America
or to carry out its plans," the statement said.[330]

XIII. Unlawful Attacks on Government Security
Forces

Insurgent groups have conducted numerous armed attacks
against Iraqi security forces, which as of June 2005 numbered more than 160,000
soldiers and police,[331] as well
as against the U.S.-led Multi-National Force. Attacks against a state's armed
forces are not unlawful under international humanitarian law, although such
acts do violate local Iraqi law and subject the perpetrator to criminal
prosecution (see section on Criminal Responsibility in Chapter XVI of this
report, "Legal Standards and the Conflict in Iraq").

Under the laws of war, police forces are civilian and
individual police may not be subject to attack unless they directly participate
in hostilities. However, police units that become formally attached to the
state's armed forces or take on military functions, including participating in
military operations against insurgents, will become legitimate objects of
attack.[332]

International humanitarian law does, however, limit the
means and manner in which legitimate military targets may be attacked. Attacks
that do not distinguish between combatants and civilians or are likely to cause
disproportionate harm to the civilian population in excess of the expected
military advantage are prohibited. Attackers must take all feasible precautions
to minimize civilian harm.

In addition, captured military and police personal are
considered no longer participating in hostilities (hors de combat). Such persons must be treated humanely; torture and
other mistreatment, and summary executions are strictly forbidden.

Insurgent groups have conducted many attacks against the
Iraqi army and police and the Multi-National Force that violated the laws of
war. First, various insurgent groups have tortured and summarily executed
dozens if not hundreds of captured Iraqi police and soldiers they have in
custody. Some captured Multi-National Force soldiers have also been killed. Article
3 common to the four Geneva Conventions, binding on government armed forces and
non-state armed groups, states that members of armed forces who have laid down
their arms due to sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause "shall in all
circumstances be treated humanely." Violence to life and person, in particular
murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture, are forbidden. And no party to
the conflict may pass sentences or carry out executions without previous
judgment by a regularly constituted court that has afforded the defendant all
judicial guarantees.[333]

Second, many insurgent attacks on legitimate military
targets have been carried out using unlawful means, namely perfidy. A
perfidious attack is one in which the attacker feigns a protected status in
order to carry out the attack. Thus, while suicide attacks are not in
themselves unlawful, a suicide bomber who pretends to be an unarmed civilian
while approaching a military checkpoint or group of soldiers before carrying
out an attack is committing a war crime. Unlike the use of decoys, camouflage
and other lawful forms of deception, perfidy places noncombatants at
unnecessary risk by causing soldiers to disregard the protected status of
civilians and incapacitated fighters out of fear of being attacked.

Third, many attacks that appeared to be targeting a valid
military object, such as massive car bombings outside police stations used for
military purposes, have caused disproportionate harm to civilians. That is, the
attackers carried out the operation knowing that the loss to civilians was
going to be greater than any foreseeable military advantage to be gained from
the attack. Indeed, some operations appear designed to link attacks on military
targets with high civilian casualties, to undermine public support for,
interaction with, and recruitment by the security forces.[334]

Summary Executions of Government Forces

Some insurgent groups have summarily executed, often by
beheading, captured Iraqi police and army personnel, as well as soldiers from
the Multi-National Force. The number of security force members murdered in the
custody of insurgent groups is not known, but groups like Ansar al-Sunna and
al-Tawhid wal-Jihad have repeatedly claimed responsibility for executing
soldiers and police.

The case with the most deaths occurred on October 23, 2004,
when insurgents executed forty-six Iraqi soldiers and three drivers taking them
home on leave. Insurgents dressed as Iraqi soldiers or police manning a
checkpoint stopped three buses with the U.S.-trained soldiers near the Iranian
border between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. The insurgents apparently ordered the
soldiers off the bus, forced them to lie in rows and shot them systematically
from behind. "Most of them were shot in their backs and the back of their
heads," a local official said.[335]

Officials found thirty-seven bodies lying in rows and,
according to the Interior Ministry, the victims' hands were tied behind their
backs. They found twelve others the next day a short distance away in one of
the buses. The three drivers were among the dead. Most of the victims were from
Basra, al-`Amara
and al-Nasiriyya.[336]

In an Internet posting, al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq
claimed responsibility for the executions. "The mujahadeen killed them all,
stole two vehicles and the salaries they had just received from their masters,"
a statement said.[337] Interim
Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad `Allawi faulted "foreign troops" for their "gross
negligence" in failing to provide security for recruits on leave.[338]

Other examples of summary executions are:

On April 9, 2004, armed men attacked a
seventeen-truck U.S. fuel
convoy near Abu Ghraib and captured two U.S. servicemen, Sgt. Elmer C.
Krause and Pfc. Keith M. Maupin from the Army Reserve's 724th Transportation
Company, and seven contractors.[339] Bodies
of four of the contractors were later found, as was the body of Sgt. Krause. One
of the contractors, Thomas Hamill, escaped after one month, but the two other
contractors and Pfc. Maupin remained missing. On April 16, al-Jazeera broadcast
a video from an unnamed armed group that showed Pfc. Maupin sitting on the
ground, apparently in good health, surrounded by six masked men. Ten weeks
later, on June 28, al-Jazeera aired another video that showed Pfc. Maupin,
along with a statement that he had been executed. Al-Jazeera did not broadcast
the execution but said the video showed a gunman shooting Pfc. Maupin in the
head from behind. U.S.
officials said they could not confirm the execution due to the poor quality of
the video.[340] Pfc.
Maupin remains the only missing U.S.
soldier in Iraq.

On October 26, 2004, Ansar al-Sunna announced the
abduction of eleven Iraqi soldiers south of Baghdad. Two days later, a statement posted
on the Internet along with photographs said the group had executed the eleven
men. "The ruling of God has been implemented against them by slaughtering one
and killing the others by firing squad," the statement reportedly said.[341]

On November 20, 2004, U.S.
and Iraqi soldiers found the bodies of nine Iraqi soldiers in an industrial
area of central Mosul.
Each of the victims reportedly had a bullet wound in the head, and four of them
were badly burned in manner suggesting they might have first been tortured.[342] Eight
days later, al-Qaeda in Iraq
claimed responsibility for killing seventeen members of Iraq's security forces in Mosul, although it is not clear if some of
these victims were the men found on November 20. In a statement posted on a
website, the group reportedly said it had killed seven "apostates" from the
armed forces, as well as a Kurdish militiaman. Three members of the Iraqi
government's Emergency Response Units were executed after being "investigated,"
the group said.[343]

On January 1, 2005, a group claiming to be
al-Qaeda Group of Jihad in Mesopotamia in
al-Ramadi posted a video on the Internet that reportedly showed the execution
of five Iraqi soldiers. Entitled "Confessions and Implementations of God's
Judgment on the American Dogs," the video showed five men in civilian clothes
on a deserted city street with their hands tied behind their backs. One of the
five men had identified himself as Bashar Latif Jassim, who "confessed" that
his assignment was to "prevent the terrorists from entering Iraq."[344]
Men with handguns shot them repeatedly in their backs.[345]

On January 23, 2005, Ansar al-Sunna released a
video that showed the execution of an Iraqi soldier. Posted on the Internet, it
reportedly showed a man in a chair with an identity card that read, "Defense
Ministry, `Abd al-Jabbar `Ali `Abdullah, colonel." An insurgent in a hood then
shot the man. A statement with the video said, "the colonel was taken captive
in Mosul, where he had been sent to help U.S.
forces seeking to recapture the town from the mujahadin. He was executed by
firing squad after confessing to his crimes."[346]

On February 2, 2005, insurgents stopped a minibus
carrying Iraqi soldiers south of Kirkuk.
They reportedly ordered the fourteen soldiers off the bus and then executed
twelve of them. The insurgents allowed two wounded men to live apparently as a
warning to others. According to the Iraqi military commander in Kirkuk, Maj. Gen. Anwar
Muhammad, "they deliberately wounded them and told them: go and tell your
village what we did."[347] The
assailants identified themselves as members of al-Takfir wal-Hijra (Atonement
and Pilgrimage).[348]

On April 20, 2005, officials discovered the
corpses of nineteen Iraqi soldiers in a stadium in the largely Sunni Arab city
of Haditha, about 130 miles northwest of Baghdad. Unknown
insurgents apparently kidnapped the soldiers while they were on leave from
their posts. According to a local health official, "the armed group threatened
the people and the medical staff of the hospital not to evacuate the bodies
from the stadium," so Iraqis would be warned not to join the Iraqi army or
police.[349] Two
witnesses said they ran to the stadium after hearing shots and saw the nineteen
bodies slumped up against a wall stained with blood.[350]

Perfidious Attacks

Perfidious attacks by insurgent groups on legitimate
military targets (attacks in which a combatant pretends to be a civilian or
other "protected person") have directly caused hundreds of civilian casualties
and have in general placed all civilians in Iraq at greater risk of harm. Suicide
attacks in which the attacker conceals his or her identity as a combatant are
war crimes for which those organizing such attacks can be prosecuted. Perfidious
attacks increase the risk to all civilians at checkpoints and at other defended
zones. Attackers who unlawfully feign civilian status to carry out attacks
increase the likelihood that armed forces will use force against civilians who
are perceived to be disguised combatants. Many of the shootings of civilians at
U.S. and Iraqi checkpoints, however unlawful, occurred in part as a result of
the fear the soldiers had of being attacked by insurgents pretending to be
civilians (see Chapter XVI of this report, "Legal Standards and the Conflict in
Iraq").

Not all insurgent groups use suicide attacks. Al-Qaeda in
Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna have claimed responsibility for most of the major
suicide attacks, both on civilian targets and government armed forces, and in
most of those attacks the attacker feigned civilian status.

On June 25 and 26, 2005, unknown insurgents in Mosul
attacked Iraqi police and army personnel four times using perfidious methods,
killing at least thirty-eight. The first attack came Saturday night, June 25,
when a suicide car bomb exploded at a police
checkpoint around 8:00 p.m., killing five officers and wounding two more. The
next morning just after dawn, a man drove a red pick-up truck full of
explosives into the Bab al-Tub police station in the center of town, killing
ten policemen and two civilians. According to an Iraqi policeman at the scene,
the explosives were hidden beneath a pile of melon and fruit. A policeman at
the front gate said that he "opened the barbed wires for [the truck], thinking
that he was trying to cross the street to unload his cargo in the nearby
wholesale market The suicide bomber was able to get close to the gate of the police station and blow himself up."[351] A short
time later, a suicide car bomber blew himself up outside the al-Kasik army base
west of the city, killing fifteen civilians who worked at the base and wounding
seven, although it is not clear if he was dressed as a civilian or driving a
civilian car. Finally, that afternoon, a man wearing a hidden explosive vest
pretended he needed medical attention and then blew himself up inside a small
police station at al-JamuriHospital in Mosul,
where many of the dead and wounded from the previous three attacks had been
taken. That attack killed four policemen and wounded six.[352]

On September 14 and 15, 2005, more than one dozen suicide
bomb attacks in Shi`a neighborhoods around Baghdad killed nearly 200 people, including
civilians and Iraqi police. Al-Qaeda in Iraq
claimed responsibility and said the attacks were retaliation for a joint
U.S.-Iraqi counter-insurgency operation in the town of Tal Afar.[353]
In one of the attacks, a suicide bomber driving a civilian car rammed into a
police bus in the al-Dora district, killing fifteen policemen and five
civilians. Four hours later, two suicide bombers in the same area killed another
nine members of the police, although it is not clear if they were feigning
civilian status.[354] In the
most deadly incident, a suicide bomber in the Kadhimiyya neighborhood lured a
large group of Shi`a men around his car with promises of work. In the midst of
a large crowd, he detonated his explosives, killing at least 112 people.[355]

Attacks on Security Forces Causing Disproportionate
Civilian Harm

Attacks by insurgents against legitimate military targets,
such as Iraqi and multinational forces, have at times apparently caused harm to
civilians far exceeding any expected military advantage. Such attacks violate
the laws of war.[356] Insurgent
groups that use car bombs and suicide bombs in crowded civilian areas have
shown a blatant disregard for civilian lives.

On April 21, 2004, for example, four car bombs exploded just
after 7:00 a.m. in the southern city of Basra,
killing sixty-eight people and wounding 200. The attackers detonated the bombs
outside three police stations and a police academy, which would be legitimate
targets if used for military purposes. Fifty-nine of the dead were civilians,
including at least sixteen children.[357]
Human Rights Watch did not conduct field research in Basra to determine whether
the police stations and police academy were performing a military function and
therefore were legitimate targets, and if so, whether the expected military
gains from the attacks justified the expected loss of civilian life. The
available evidence, however, strongly suggests that the expected harm to civilians
far exceeded the expected military gain.

"I saw a minibus full of children on fire," said one man,
who lived near the Sa`udiyya police station, which came under attack. "Fifteen
of the eighteen passengers were killed and three badly wounded. I looked around
and saw my leg bleeding and my neighbor lying dead on the floor torn apart."[358]

A fifteen-year-old girl was about to board the bus when the
explosion went off. "I had just left the house," she told a journalist. "I
opened the door and went out. I could see the bus. I found myself flying in the
air and falling on the ground. I saw fire and smoke. It was a huge explosion. I
couldn't get up again."[359]

On November 11, 2004, a suicide bomber in a Kia microbus
detonated his explosives on Bagdhad's Sadun
Street, a busy commercial strip, during the
morning rush hour. The target was a five-car convoy of Iraqi police, but the
blast killed seventeen civilians and wounded twenty people, including some
police, incinerated ten cars and destroyed shops along the street. Seven bodies
arrived at al-Kindi hospital, six of them burnt beyond recognition, a doctor
said. The blast carved a crater in the road and caused a building to collapse.[360] Again,
although Human Rights Watch did not investigate this case itself, the evidence
strongly suggests that the expected harm to civilians far exceeded the expected
military gain.

"No one should see what I saw: pieces of flesh, cut legs,
burned bodies," said Thae Khudhair Jasim, a twenty-three-year-old taxi driver,
who suffered wounds to his neck and chest when the windshield of his taxi
shattered from the blast.[361]

"I entered the shop, then suddenly there was a huge blast
that brought down the roof. Then I don't know what happened next," said Sami
Hanun, a thirty-four-year-old worker who was wounded in the attack. "Right now,
I can't feel my legs. I don't know if I can walk again."[362]

"It was a car bomb
directed at our patrol, but it hit civilians," said Iraqi police officer Hadi `Umar,
who cut his head on broken glass. "We're still trying to find people under the
rubble."[363]

In a number of reported incidents, insurgents have
apparently caused disproportionate civilian deaths in attacks on U.S.
forces. On September
30, 2004, for example, two car bombs exploded at a ribbon-cutting
ceremony outside a recently reconstructed sewage pumping station in Baghdad's Hay al-`Amal
neighborhood, killing forty-one people, more than thirty of them children. The
target was apparently a convoy of U.S. soldiers from the First
Calvary Division who were attending the ceremony and distributing candy to
children outside the station when the bombs exploded. Ten soldiers were
injured, the U.S.
military said.[364]

"I went out after the first explosion and then got hit by
the second. I felt my leg crack, and I fell," said Karab `Abd al-Karim, aged
sixteen.[365] "I hate
the people who did this. But I also blame the Americans, they came into our
neighborhood and brought this with them," said the father of nine-year-old
Muhammad Akhbar Yunis, who was hit by shrapnel in the arm.[366]

Again, Human Rights Watch did not conduct field research
into this incident, but the fact that forty-one civilians died, many of them
children, in an attack on soldiers opening a pumping station strongly suggests
that the expected civilian cost far outweighed any anticipated military gain.

XIV. Violations by U.S. Forces

The violations of international humanitarian law documented
in this report occurred in the context of an armed conflict in which abuses
have been committed by all sides. This in no way lessens the responsibility of
those implicated in war crimes and other offenses. It is a fundamental
principle of the laws of war that violations by one side never justify
violations by the other.

Human Rights Watch has previously documented violations of
international humanitarian law by the U.S.-led coalition forces during the
invasion of Iraq
until President Bush's declaration of the end of active hostilities on May 1, 2003.[367] The
organization has also reported on abuses by U.S.
forces during the military occupation of Iraq and since that time, including
the torture and humiliation of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and other
detention centers.[368] The
following is only a summary of Human Rights Watch's major concerns.

During the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq,
the U.S.
military took inadequate steps to minimize civilian casualties. The widespread
use of cluster munitions in populated areas, especially by U.S. and U.K. ground forces, caused at least
hundreds of civilian casualties. In addition, fifty so-called "decapitation
strikes" on Iraqi leaders relied on satellite phone call intercepts and
corroborating intelligence that proved inadequate, missing all fifty targets
but causing dozens of civilian deaths.[369]
While U.S. and U.K.
air forces generally avoided civilian infrastructure, air strikes on civilian
power distribution facilities in al-Nasiriyya caused considerable civilian
suffering and attacks on Iraqi media installations were of questionable
legality. In some instances of direct combat, especially in Baghdad
and al-Nasiriyya, problems with training and the rules of engagement for U.S.
ground forces may have contributed to loss of civilian life.

After the fall of the Saddam Hussein government and
throughout the military occupation of Iraq, the United States had a legal
obligation under international humanitarian law to take all measures in its
power to restore and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety-an
obligation the United States failed to meet.[370]U.S.
and coalition forces largely stood by as individual Iraqis and organized groups
looted government offices, hospitals, and, most dangerously for the country's
security, abandoned police and army depots filled with arms and ammunition.

In the intervening two years, the U.S. military's use of force has
resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries that warrant investigation
as possible indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks in violation of the laws
of war. A September 2003 Human Rights Watch study of civilian deaths in Baghdad
revealed a pattern by U.S. forces of over-aggressive tactics, indiscriminate
shooting in residential areas and a reliance on lethal force rather than
control measures at checkpoints. In some cases, U.S. forces faced a legitimate
threat, which gave them the right to respond with force. But that response was
often disproportionate to the threat or inadequately targeted, thereby harming
civilians or putting them at unnecessary risk.[371]
Human Rights Watch has also criticized the U.S. military for overaggressive
reactions that put journalists in unnecessary danger.[372]U.S.
forces have failed to conduct investigations into the loss of civilian lives
during military operations and thus have made insufficient effort to take steps
to reduce civilian casualties.

-

A boy
watches a U.S.
military vehicle on the main road in al-Falluja in May 2003. U.S. soldiers
have used excessive and indiscriminate force there and in other towns.

2003 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

Due to security considerations, Human Rights Watch has not
been able to investigate violations of international humanitarian law by both
sides during U.S.
military assaults and counter-insurgency sweeps, such as in al-Falluja and
along the Syrian border. Reported summary executions, torture and other
mistreatment by U.S.
forces against Iraqi insurgents and civilians captured on the battlefield are a
major concern. A September 2005 Human Rights Watch report, Leadership Failure: Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by
the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, provides U.S. soldier
testimony of the torture and other mistreatment of Iraqis in detention. The
failure of the U.S. military to undertake criminal prosecutions where there is
strong evidence of war crimes-the videotaped incident of a U.S. Marine shooting
to death an incapacitated insurgent in an al-Falluja mosque being among the
most highly publicized incidents[373]-reinforces
these concerns.

U.S.
forces have also been implicated in acts of torture and other mistreatment of
suspected insurgents at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities in Iraq. Methods
of interrogation include harsh and coercive techniques such as subjecting
detainees to painful stress positions and prolonged sleep deprivation. The
Schlesinger panel appointed by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted
fifty-five substantiated cases of detainee abuse in Iraq, plus twenty instances of
detainee deaths under investigation. An earlier report by Maj. Gen. Antonio
Taguba found "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal
abuses" that constituted "systematic and illegal abuse of detainees" at Abu
Ghraib. Another U.S. Defense Department report documented forty-four
allegations of such war crimes at Abu Ghraib.[374]

Human Rights Watch reiterates its call that the U.S. government investigate all credible
allegations of unlawful killings by U.S. soldiers, and punish soldiers
and officers found to have used or tolerated the use of excessive or
indiscriminate force. Human Rights Watch has also found that high-ranking U.S.
civilian and military leaders-including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,
former CIA Director George Tenet, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, formerly the top
U.S. commander in Iraq, and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who commanded Abu Ghraib
prison in Iraq-made decisions and issued policies concerning detainees that
facilitated serious and widespread violations of the law in Iraq, as well as in
Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay. The circumstances of the abuse strongly
suggest that they either knew or should have known that such violations would
take place or were taking place as a result of their actions. There is also
information indicating that, when presented with evidence that abuse was in
fact occurring, they failed to act to stop the abuse.[375]

XV. Violations by the Iraqi Government

As this report documents, members of the Iraqi army and
police are under regular attack by insurgent groups using suicide bombers,
roadside bombs and car bombs, and subjecting those in custody to torture and
summary execution. But this does not absolve the government from its
obligations to respect Iraqi and international law in its law enforcement and
counter-insurgency operations.

Thus far, these obligations are not being met. One area of
concern is the Iraqi government's treatment of persons in detention. A January
2005 Human Rights Watch report found that Iraqi security forces were committing
systematic torture and other abuses against detainees, including children.[376] In
particular, the report documented the systematic use of arbitrary arrest,
prolonged pre-trial detention without judicial review, torture and
ill-treatment, denial of access by families and lawyers and abysmal conditions
in pre-trial detention facilities. Trials were marred by inadequate legal
representation and the acceptance of coerced confessions asevidence. Persons tortured or mistreated had inadequate access to
health care and no realistic avenue for legal redress. With rare exception,
Iraqi authorities have failed to investigate and punish officials responsible
for violations. Human Rights Watch found that international police advisers,
primarily U.S. citizens
funded through the United
States, had turned a blind eye to these
rampant abuses.

A human rights report by the United Nations Assistance
Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) documented the use of excessive force and other
violations by Iraqi security forces throughout the summer of 2005. According to
an UNAMI report released in September, "UNAMI received consistent reports of
excessive use of force with regard to persons and property as well as mass
arrests carried out by Iraqi police and special forces acting alone or in
association with the MNF [Multi-National Force]." In addition, "mass detentions
of persons without warrants continue to be used in military operations by Iraqi
police, special forces of the Ministry of Interior and by MNF-I."[377]

Iraqi authorities have mistreated in detention both alleged
common criminals and suspected insurgents. Regardless of the reasons for
detention or arrest, the Iraqi government is legally bound to treat all
detainees and arrested individuals humanely and to prosecute them in accordance
with international fair trial standards.[378]

A growing area of concern is the Iraqi government's
counter-insurgency campaign, with increasingly frequent reports in 2005 that
Iraqi forces were committing torture against detainees and some extra-judicial
executions.[379]

On May 26, 2005, the Iraqi Interior and Defense Ministers
announced a major counter-insurgency campaign across Iraq in cooperation with the
Multi-National Force called "Operation al-Barq" (Lightning), which involved
40,000 Iraqi security forces.[380] Sunni
political and religious leaders quickly complained that the operation was
indiscriminately targeting Sunni communities and arbitrarily detaining Sunni civilians
arbitrarily or without legal basis in dragnets.[381]
Due to security concerns, Human Rights Watch was not able to investigate the
charge.

Of particular concern is the growing number of security
units and militias, some of which enjoy nominal autonomy but cooperate to
varying degrees with Iraqi security forces. Sunni leaders have accused elements
within SCIRI's Badr Organization,[382]
and the Special Police Commandos of illegal killings and abuse against
detainees. An American journalist who accompanied the Special Police Commandos
for one week in Samarra
witnessed a commander threatening the son of a suspected insurgent with death
and the beating of other detainees. U.S.
military advisors, some of them with counter-insurgency experience from El Salvador,
were working closely with the commando group.[383]

In May 2005 the Association of Muslim Scholars accused the
Badr Organization of killing fourteen Sunnis, including three imams, but Human
Rights Watch could not verify the claim.[384]

A recent example of Iraqi government abuse occurred on July
10, when ten Sunni Arab men suffocated after Iraqi commandos locked them in a
police van in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The details of the
case remain in dispute but, by all accounts, the commandos seized the men (who
the police claim were insurgents) from NurHospital
near Abu Ghraib and threw them into the van, where ten of them died and two
survived. "We were left from 5:30 that evening inside a kind of container that
had no air vents," one of the survivors later told the press. "After one hour,
we lost consciousness and some people began to die, the others were dead by one
o'clock in the morning."[385] According
to doctors who examined the bodies, the commandos had tortured the men with
electric shock. Witnesses told the press the commandos were from the First
Brigade, but one of the officers in charge of the commando unit, Brig. Gen.
Rashid Flayih, said the unit was a police paramilitary force known as the
Special Security Force.[386]

Iraq's
Human Rights Ministry condemned the deaths as "an inhuman act that violates all
international norms and standards," and said it had established a team of
experts to investigate. "If proved guilty, the commandos must be tried to
receive just penalty

In the north, Kurdish security forces have also been
responsible for abuses. Most recently, Kurdish security forces have been
implicated in a concerted effort to illegally detain Arabs and Turkomans in the
city of Kirkuk.
In mid-June, the Washington Post reported
that Kurdish police and security forces, backed by the U.S. military, had abducted
hundreds of minority Arabs and Turkomans in the city, detaining them in prisons
in Arbil and Sulaimaniyya, where some were tortured. According to a
confidential U.S. State Department cable the paper obtained, the
"extra-judicial detentions" were part of a "concerted and widespread
initiative" by Kurdish political parties "to exercise authority in Kirkuk in an increasingly
provocative manner."[388]

In 2005, the Iraqi Interior Ministry began participating in
a television show called "Terrorism in the Grip of Justice," which airs almost
nightly on al-`Iraqiya, Iraq's U.S.-funded national
station. Very popular among Iraqis, the program shows alleged insurgents, some
of them cut and bruised, purportedly confessing to rapes, kidnappings and
executions. Given the Interior Ministry's record of systematic torture, Human
Rights Watch is deeply concerned that some of the detainees may have suffered
physical abuse or due process violations, as well as public humiliation, which
are forbidden by international humanitarian and human rights law. In
transcripts of four shows reviewed by Human Rights Watch, the interrogator
repeatedly mocks the detainees.[389] In one
show described in the English-language press, a former policeman with two black
eyes confessed to killing two police officers in Samarra; a few days after the broadcast, the
former policeman's family told reporters that someone had delivered to them the
man's corpse.[390]

XVI. Legal Standards and the Conflict in Iraq

International Humanitarian Law in Iraq

All parties to the military conflict in Iraq-Iraqi
government forces, U. S. and other coalition forces and insurgent groups-are
bound by international humanitarian law (or the laws of war). International
humanitarian law imposes upon warring parties legal obligations to reduce
unnecessary suffering and to protect civilians and other non-combatants. An
important guiding principle of international humanitarian law is to distinguish
between combatants and those not taking part in the hostilities.

International humanitarian law is applicable to situations
of armed conflict without regard to the legal basis for the conflict. That is,
it applies whether the armed conflict itself is legal or illegal under
international law, and whether those fighting are regular armies or non-state
armed groups. U.S. and other coalition forces, Iraqi government forces and
insurgent groups are all obligated to respect the laws of war regardless of
whether the armed conflict and resulting occupation are considered lawful or
not.

Likewise, insurgency is not in itself a violation of
international humanitarian law. The laws of war do not prohibit the existence
of insurgent groups or their attacks on legitimate military targets. Rather, it
restricts the means and manner of insurgent attacks and imposes upon them a
duty to protect civilians and other non-combatants. In other words,
international humanitarian law does not regulate if states and armed groups engage in hostilities, but rather how states and armed groups engage in
hostilities. Human Rights Watch, consistent with our position of neutrality in
armed conflicts, takes no position on the legality under international law of
the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq
or the resulting insurgency.

The specific international humanitarian law provisions
applicable in Iraq
have changed as the nature of the conflict has evolved over the past two years.
The U.S.-led attack on Iraq
that began on March
20, 2003 is considered to be an international armed conflict-a
conflict between opposing states. The law applicable to international conflicts
includes the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, to which Iraq and the United States are party,[391] and the
Hague Regulations of 1907,[392] which
are considered reflective of customary international law.

With the fall of the Iraqi government in April 2003, the United States along with the United Kingdom became occupying powers under
international law, regulated primarily by the
Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention.[393] Occupying
powers have a legal obligation to restore and ensure, as far as possible,
public order and safety in the territory under their authority.[394] Military
commanders on the ground must act to prevent and where necessary suppress
serious violations involving the local population under their control or
subject to their authority. The occupying force is responsible for protecting
the population from violence by third parties, such as newly formed armed
groups or forces of the former government. Ensuring local security includes
protecting civilians, including minority group members and other targeted
groups, from reprisals and revenge attacks. Until such time that local police
can be organized for securing public order, occupying armed forces may have to
be deployed in this role. Unless such forces are facing hostilities, the use of
force is governed by international human rights standards for law enforcement.
That is, only necessary and proportionate force may be used and only to the
extent required.[395]

The occupying powers in Iraq
exercised power through the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), headed by U.S.
diplomat L. Paul Bremer.[396] From
2003 to 2004, the CPA gradually transferred power to Iraqi bodies it had established.
On July 13, 2003,
the CPA created the Interim Governing Council as a stated step towards
transferring authority to Iraqis, followed by the Iraqi Interim Government on June 1, 2004, run
by Prime Minister Ayad `Allawi.[397] On June 28, 2004,
the CPA transferred all government authority to the Iraqi Interim Government. The
Transitional Administration Law, prepared by the CPA, became supreme law of the
land until an elected assembly drafted a new permanent constitution. Under the
Geneva Conventions an occupation is considered ended when control by the
occupying power is no longer exercised.[398]
The United Nations, via U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546,[399] and the
ICRC each determined that the occupation of Iraq under international law ended
with the June 28 transfer of power.[400]

The hostilities in Iraq since the end of the formal
occupation are considered a non-international (internal) armed conflict,
governed primarily by common article 3 to the Geneva Conventions and customary
international humanitarian law.[401] Many
provisions of the 1977 Protocols, including most of those concerned with
protecting the civilian population, are considered reflective of customary
international law.[402]

During armed conflicts, international human rights law
remains in effect, though it may be superseded by more specific provisions of
international humanitarian law (the principle of lex specialis).[403] Human
rights law may also be limited by so-called derogation clauses imposed under a
state of emergency.[404] Some
rights can never be derogated from, including the right to life, the right not
to be tortured or otherwise mistreated, the right not to be charged ex post facto, and the right to freedom
of thought, conscience and religion.[405]
International humanitarian law has been increasingly interpreted to be
consistent with the requirements of human rights law. Thus the fundamental
guarantees provided to all persons in custody under common article 3 to the
1949 Geneva Conventions and customary international humanitarian law also can
be found in international human rights law.[406]

On October 16, 2003, the U.N. Security Council authorized a
Multi-National Force in Iraq.
Dominated by the United States
but including other members of the coalition, the Security Council gave the
force the authority "to take all necessary measures to contribute to the
maintenance of security and stability in Iraq."[407]
As of September 2005, the United States
had approximately 140,000 soldiers in Iraq.[408]
Twenty-six countries in the coalition were contributing another 23,000 military
personnel.[409]

National and regional elections were held on January 30, 2005.
In addition to eighteen provincial bodies, Iraqis voted for a 275-member
Transitional National Assembly. The Assembly appointed a transitional
government run by Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Ja`fari, but its main task over
2005 is to draft the constitution, to be presented to the Iraqis for approval
in a general referendum scheduled for October 15, 2005.[410]

International Humanitarian Law and the Protection
of Civilians

The changed designation of the conflict since 2003 from an
international to an internal armed conflict is largely irrelevant when dealing
with the basic issue of civilian protection. Regardless of how a conflict is
defined, all forces must respect the principles of preventing unnecessary
suffering, ensuring humane treatment, and upholding the distinction between
combatants and civilians. It is always forbidden to target civilians, and
government armed forces and non-state armed groups must take all feasible
precautions to minimize civilian harm.

The principle of distinction between civilians and
combatants is recognized as a fundamental principle of international
humanitarian law in both international and internal armed conflicts. This
principle provides that all parties to a conflict:

must at all times distinguish between civilians and
combatants. Attacks may only be directed against combatants. Attacks must not
be directed against civilians.[411]

All parties must also distinguish between civilian objects
and military objectives; attacks may not be directed against civilian objects.[412] Attacks
that are primarily designed to spread terror among the civilian population are
prohibited.[413]

A civilian is defined under international humanitarian law
as a person who is not a member of the armed forces. The term "civilian" also
includes some employees of the military establishment who assist the armed
force.[414] This
would include, for instance, the numerous civilians serving on military bases
as cleaners, translators and construction workers. While as civilians they may
not be targeted, these civilian employees of military establishments or those
who indirectly assist combatants assume the risk of death or injury incidental
to attacks against legitimate military targets while they are in the immediate
vicinity of military targets.

Civilians are protected from attack unless and for only such
time as they take a direct part in hostilities. In case of doubt whether a
person is a civilian, that person is considered a civilian.[415]

The meaning of "taking a direct part in hostilities" has
never been fully clarified. According to the ICRC commentary to Protocol I,
"direct participation [in hostilities] means acts of war which by their nature
and purpose are likely to cause actual harm to the personnel and equipment of
enemy armed forces," and includes acts of defense.[416]
Direct participation in hostilities "implies a direct causal relationship
between the activity engaged in and the harm done to the enemy at the time and
the place where the activity takes place." Civilians lose their immunity from
attack for as long as they directly participate in hostilities.[417]

Typically, civilians who fire weapons or directly assist
combatants on the battlefield, such as by loading weapons or acting as artillery
spotters, are considered to be directly participating in the hostilities. "Hostilities"
not only covers the time when the civilian actually makes use of a weapon but
also the time that he is carrying it, as well as situations in which he
undertakes hostile acts without using a weapon.[418]
Persons planning military operations or directing attacks would also be
considered directly participating in hostilities.

There are a number of gray areas in the phrase "direct
participation in the hostilities." These relate not only to the civilian's
activity and whether it is direct participation or not, but also to its
geographic or temporal beginning and end. That is, there is little clarity as
to when a civilian with a weapon actually begins participating in the hostilities,
and at what point the participation ends. However, civilians subjected to
attack documented in this report were unambiguously not directly participating
in the hostilities. Iraqi politicians or government employees, civilian
officials and staff of foreign governments, humanitarian aid workers,
journalists and contractors without a military function are all protected
civilians under the laws of war.

Police normally have the status of civilians.[419] Police
units that take part in military operations or otherwise engage in military
functions may be targeted as combatants. Individual police may only be targeted
during such time that they take a direct part in the hostilities.[420] Recruitment
candidates for the police or military, such as those waiting in line outside
police stations or army recruitment centers, are also civilians not considered
to be participating in hostilities.

The principle of distinction is also enshrined in common
article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions, which imposes legal obligations on
all parties to a conflict to ensure humane treatment of persons not, or no
longer, taking an active role in hostilities. Common article 3 states:

Persons taking no active part in the hostilities,
including members of armed forces who had laid down their arms and those placed
hors de combat [out of combat] by
sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be
treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, color,
religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

Common article 3 expressly binds "each Party to the
conflict," that is, government forces and non-state armed groups, even though
the latter do not have the legal capacity to sign the Geneva Conventions. In Iraq,
the Multi-National Force, Iraqi government forces and organized insurgent
groups are parties to the conflict and therefore bound by common article 3's
provisions.

The obligation to apply common article 3 is absolute for all
parties to the conflict and independent of the obligation of the other parties.
In other words, Iraqi insurgent groups cannot excuse themselves from complying
with common article 3 on the grounds that the Multi-National Force or Iraqi
government forces are violating common article 3, and vice versa.

With regard to civilians and captured combatants, both
government and insurgent forces are prohibited from using violence to life and
person, in particular murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture. The
taking of hostages is forbidden, as is humiliating and degrading treatment. No
party to the conflict may pass sentences or carry out executions without
previous judgment by a regularly constituted court that has afforded the
defendant all judicial guarantees.[421]

Customary international humanitarian law provides a more
encompassing list of protections for civilians in internal armed conflicts. While
not an all-inclusive list, the following practices, orders, and actions are
prohibited by all sides:

In addition parties must allow and facilitate rapid and
unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need.[428] The
freedom of movement of humanitarian relief workers must be ensured.[429]

Designation of Military Objectives

Under international humanitarian law, a legitimate military
objective is an object or a target, selected by its nature, location, purpose,
or use, that contributes effectively to the enemy's military capability, and
whose destruction or neutralization offers a definite military advantage in the
circumstances.[430] Legitimate
military objectives include the enemy's forces, weapons, convoys,
installations, and supplies. In addition, objects generally used for civilian
purposes, such as houses, buses, taxicabs, or a civilian airfield, can become
military objectives if their location or use meets the criteria for a military
objective."[431]

The laws of war characterize all objects as civilian unless
they satisfy the two-fold test mentioned above. Objects normally dedicated to
civilian use, such as houses, mosques, churches and schools, are presumed not
to be military objectives. If they do in fact assist the enemy's military
action, they can lose their immunity from direct attack. This presumption only
attaches to objects that ordinarily have no significant military use or
purpose. For example, this presumption would not include objects such as transportation
and communications systems that under applicable criteria are military
objectives.

The attacker must take all feasible precautions to verify
that the objectives to be attacked are military and not civilian. "Feasible"
means "that which is practical or practically possible taking into account all
the circumstances at the time, including those relevant to the success of
military operations."[432] At the
same time, defenders must take all feasible precautions to protect civilians
under their control from the effects of attacks.[433]
During international armed conflicts and arguably during internal ones, all
parties must avoid locating military objectives near densely populated areas
and they must, to the extent feasible, remove civilians and civilian objects
from the vicinity of military objectives.[434]

Prohibition
on Attacks Causing Disproportionate Civilian Harm

and
Indiscriminate Attacks

International humanitarian law prohibits attacks that cause
disproportionate harm to civilians or which cannot discriminate between
civilians and military objectives.

The principle of proportionality obliges combatants to
choose a means of attack that avoids or minimizes damage to civilians. Attacks
are prohibited if they may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian
life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination
thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct
military advantage anticipated.[435]

If an attack can be expected to cause incidental civilian
casualties or damage, two requirements must be met before that attack is
launched. First, there must be an anticipated "concrete and direct" military
advantage. Thus, a remote advantage to be gained at some unknown time in the
future would not be a proper consideration to weigh against expected civilian
losses."[436]

Creating conditions "conducive to surrender" by conducting
attacks that incidentally harm the civilian population[437]
is too remote to qualify as a "concrete and direct" military advantage.[438]

The second requirement of the principle of proportionality
is that the foreseeable injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects not
be disproportionate, that is, "excessive" in comparison to the expected
"concrete and definite military advantage."

Excessive damage is a relative concept. For instance, the
presence of a single soldier cannot serve as a justification to destroy the
entire village. If the destruction of a bridge is of paramount importance for
the occupation of a strategic zone, "it is understood that some houses may be
hit, but not that a whole urban area be leveled."[439]
There is never a justification for excessive civilian casualties, no matter how
valuable the military target.[440]

Indiscriminate attacks are also prohibited. An
indiscriminate attack has been defined as an attack that:

1)is
not directed at a specific military objective;

2)employs
a method or means of combat that cannot be directed at a specific military
objective; or

3)employs
a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required
by international humanitarian law; and consequently, in each such case, are of
a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects
without distinction.[441]

Suicide Attacks and International Law

Suicide attacks are a method of warfare that in themselves
do not violate the laws of war. For example, Japanese kamikaze attacks against U.S.
military forces during World War II were lawful attacks on military targets. In
Iraq,
most suicide attacks have been carried out by persons carrying explosive
devices on their person or driving vehicles packed with explosives. As weapons
they are very discriminate: a suicide bomber is able to detonate with an
accuracy that exceeds that of the most sophisticated guided weapon. It is not
an inherently indiscriminate weapon, such as land mines or roadside bombs
detonated by a timing mechanism.

Yet for several reasons, many if not most of the suicide
bomb attacks carried out in Iraq
have been in violation of the laws of war. First, many of the suicide bombers
have targeted civilians or civilian objects, not military targets. Second,
attacks conducted against military targets have been against police stations or
convoys surrounded by civilians, such that the attacks caused disproportionate
civilian casualties compared to the expected military advantage. Third, most
suicide bombers have carried out their attacks dressed as civilians with their
explosives hidden, although they are combatants under the law; any attempt to
feign civilian or noncombatant status to deceive the enemy into letting down
their guard is perfidy, and violates international humanitarian law.[442]

Perfidy poses particular dangers because it blurs the
distinction between enemy soldiers, who are a valid target, and civilians and
other noncombatants, who are not. Soldiers fearful of perfidious attacks are
more likely to fire upon civilians and wounded or surrendering soldiers,
however unlawfully. Perfidy is distinguished from ruses of war, such as mock
operations, misinformation, surprises, ambushes, or the use of camouflage or
decoys. Ruses are permissible acts of warfare intended to trick the enemy; they
do not violate international law to the extent that they do not depend on
taking advantage of an enemy's willingness to abide by the law protecting noncombatants.[443]

Criminal Responsibility

Serious violations of international humanitarian law are war
crimes. All individuals-combatants and civilians-are criminally responsible for
war crimes they commit. Military commanders, whether of regular armed forces or
non-state armed groups, may be held responsible for war crimes committed under
their orders. They may also be held culpable as a matter of command
responsibility for crimes committed by their subordinates if they knew or
should have known of the crimes and did not take all necessary and reasonable
measures to prevent such crimes or to punish those responsible.[444]

The law governing internal armed conflicts does not
recognize what is known as the combatant's privilege-the license to kill or
capture enemy troops, and destroy military objectives. The privilege immunizes
combatants from criminal prosecution by their captors for violent acts that do
not violate the laws of war but would otherwise be crimes under domestic law. Members
of armed groups may be prosecuted under domestic law for participating in the
hostilities.[445] Specifically,
Iraqi courts can prosecute captured insurgents taken into custody according to
international fair trial standards for such offenses under Iraqi law. They may
also be prosecuted under a CPA order that prohibits the possession, transport,
concealment, sale, and use of unauthorized firearms, and military weapons, by
any individuals other than the coalition forces, Iraqi security police and
personnel under the supervision of the coalition and private security companies
licensed by the Ministry of the Interior.[446]

Any non-Iraqis taking part in insurgent activities in Iraq
would generally be governed by the same laws that apply to Iraqis, that is,
they could be prosecuted for taking up arms. Such persons could also be legally
returned to their home country unless there are substantial grounds for
believing they will be subjected to torture, ill-treatment or persecution upon
return.[447]

Crimes
Against Humanity

Some insurgent
groups have committed murder, torture and other offenses as part of widespread
or systematic attacks against the civilian population. When carried out as part
of a group's policy or plan-evidenced for instance by claims of responsibility
for suicide attacks against civilians-such attacks are crimes against humanity.

Crimes against
humanity were first codified in the charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945
to prohibit crimes "which either by their magnitude and savagery or by their
large number or by the fact that a similar pattern was appliedendangered the
international community or shocked the conscience of mankind."[448]
The concept has been incorporated into a number of international treaties and
the statutes of international criminal tribunals, including the Rome Statute of
the International Criminal Court.[449] The
definition of crimes against humanity varies slightly by treaty, but as a
matter of customary international law the term "crimes against humanity"
includes a range of serious human rights abuses committed as part of a
widespread or systematic attack by a government or non-state group against a
civilian population.[450]
Murder and torture all fall within the range of acts that can qualify as crimes
against humanity.[451] Unlike war crimes, crimes against
humanity may be committed in times of peace or in periods of unrest that do not
rise to the level of an armed conflict.

Crimes against
humanity include only abuses that take place as part of an attack against a
civilian population. So long as the targeted population is of a predominantly
civilian nature, the presence of some combatants does not alter its
classification as a "civilian population" as a matter of law.[452] Rather, it is necessary only that the
civilian population be the primary object of the attack.[453] The attack against a civilian
population underlying the commission of crimes against humanity needs only to
be widespread or systematic; it need
not be both.[454] "Widespread" refers to the scale of the
acts or number of victims.[455] A "systematic" attack indicates "a
pattern or methodical plan."[456] Finally, the perpetrator must have
known that the conduct was part of a widespread or systematic attack against a
civilian population.[457]

Those who commit crimes against humanity, like war crimes,
are held individually criminally responsible for their actions. Crimes against
humanity give rise to universal jurisdiction, they do not permit the defense of
following superior orders, and they do not benefit from statutes of limitation.
There is an emerging trend in international jurisprudence and standard setting
that those responsible for crimes against humanity and other serious violations
of human rights should not be granted amnesty.[458]
As in the case of war crimes, all states are responsible for bringing those who
commit crimes against humanity to justice.

Appendix A

Major Attacks with Civilian Deaths by Insurgent
Groups in Iraq

A major attack is
defined as having resulted in ten or more civilian deaths. The list is based on
major media sources (see below) and
may not include all attacks.

Attacks in 2003

August 7 - A
truck bomb outside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad kills sixteen and injures more than
fifty.

August 19 - A
suicide bomber in a truck demolishes U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing twenty-two people, including
U.N. Special Representative to the Secretary-General Sergio Vieira de Mello,
and wounding more than 150.

October 27 -
A truck bomb explodes outside the headquarters of the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Baghdad,
killing twelve. Bombs at three police stations in the city kill at least
twenty-three more.

Attacks in 2004

January 18 -
Suicide car bomber kills at least twenty-five, mostly Iraqi civilians, at
entrance to the main U.S.
headquarters in Baghdad.

February 1 -
Ninety-nine Kurdish civilians are killed and 246 wounded when two suicide
bombers detonate bombs at the offices of the main Kurdish political parties in
Arbil.

February 10 -
Suicide car bomb explodes in a police station in al-Iskandariyya south of Baghdad, killing
fifty-three civilians.

February 11 -
Suicide car bomb explodes outside an Iraqi army recruitment center in Baghdad, killing up to
forty-seven and wounding fifty.

March 2 -
More than 181 die and 573 are wounded when multiple blasts erupt in Baghdad and Karbala
while Shi`a pilgrims are observing `Ashura', the holiest day of the Shi`a
calendar.

April 20 -
Insurgents fire twelve mortar rounds into Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. According to U.S.
military officials, the attacks kill twenty-two prisoners and wound ninety-two.

April 21 -
Car bombs outside three Iraqi police stations and a police academy in Basra kill sixty-eight
people, including sixteen children, and wound 200. Nine of the sixty-eight
victims were police.

April 24 -
Fourteen Iraqi civilians are killed when insurgents fire mortars and rockets
into a crowded market in Baghdad's SadrCity.

April 24 - A
roadside bomb in al-Iskandariyya kills fourteen Iraqis traveling to Baghdad on a bus.

June 17 - A
car bomb kills thirty-five Iraqis and wounds more than 100 outside an army
recruiting station in Baghdad.

June 25 - A
wave of attacks by insurgents in six cities kills more than 100 and wounds more
than 300. In Mosul, sixty-two people die and 220 are injured from car bombs at
the police academy, two police stations and a hospital, although it is not
clear how many of the victims were civilians.

July 14 - A
suicide car bomber blows himself up at the gates of the U.S.-fortified Green
Zone, killing at least ten Iraqi civilians and injuring dozens.

July 28 - A
suicide car bomb kills sixty-eight people and wounds fifty-six in Ba`quba
intended for men lined up outside a police recruiting center.

August 1 -
Coordinated car bomb attacks on five churches, four in Baghdad
and one in Mosul,
kill eleven and wound more than forty.

August 26 - A
mortar attack on a mosque in Kufa kills twenty-seven Iraqis and wounds
sixty-three.

August 27 -
Unidentified gunmen fire into a group walking on the main road from Kufa to
Najaf, killing fifteen.

August 31 -
Ansar al-Sunna announce the execution of twelve Nepalese contractors, including
one beheading, on a web site.

September 14
- A car bomb near a police station in Baghdad
kills at least forty-seven people and wounds 114 in a nearby market. Recruits
were lining up out the station to sign up for the police.

September 30
- Insurgents detonate three car bombs in Baghdad's Hay al-'Amel neighborhood as
U.S. soldiers hand out candy for the opening of a renovated water pumping
station, killing forty-one people, thirty-four of them children.

October 10 -
A suicide car bomb near the Oil Ministry in Baghdad killed an estimated ten Iraqis.

October 15 -
A suicide bomber in a car explodes near a police station in Baghdad, killing ten civilians, including a
family of four.

October 23 -
Insurgents capture and execute forty-six soldiers from the Iraqi armed forces
and three drivers taking them home for the weekend on leave.

October 31 -
A rocket slams into a hotel in Tikrit, killing fifteen and wounding eight.

November 11 -
A car bomb explodes just after a U.S. patrol passes, killing
seventeen Iraqi civilians and wounding thirty.

December 3 -
A car bomb kills at least fourteen people outside a Shi`a mosque in Baghdad and heavily
damages the mosque.

December 19 -
A suicide car bomb in Najaf, 300 yards from the Imam Ali shrine kills and
wounds more than 120. On the same day, a car bomb explodes at Karbala's bus station, killing fourteen and
injuring at least forty.

December 27 -
A suicide car bomber kills thirteen people outside the offices of SCIRI, one of
the main Shi`a Muslim political parties, in Baghdad.

December 28 -
Twenty-eight people are killed in an explosion that flattens several houses in Baghdad, apparently when a
police unit was lured into a trap laid by insurgents.

Attacks in 2005 (through mid-September)

January 19 -
A suicide car bomb explodes near a police station in Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood, killing an
estimated eleven civilians.

January 21 -
A suicide car bomb blows up outside a Shi`a mosque in Baghdad killing fourteen and wounding forty

February 7 -
Suicide bombers kill at least twenty-seven in two Iraqi cities; outside a Ba`quba
police station and a Mosul
hospital.

February 7
A suicide car bomb kills fifteen civilians and wounds seventeen outside the
main police headquarters in Ba`quba.

February 8 -
A suicide bomber killed twenty-one people waiting to sign up for the Iraqi
police and wounded twenty-seven in Baghdad.

February 11 -
A car bomb kills at least twelve Iraqis and wounds forty outside a Shi`a mosque
in Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad.

February 11 -
Masked gunmen kill at least ten at a bakery in a Shi`a area of Baghdad. It remains
unclear if the attack was by insurgents or the result of a tribal dispute.

February 12 -
A suicide car bomber kills seventeen Iraqis outside a hospital south of Baghdad.

February 18 -
A suicide bomber kills fifteen and wounds twenty-four as Shi`a Muslims
celebrate the religious festival of `Ashura'in a procession to al-Kadhimiyya
mosque in southern Baghdad.

February 28 -
A suicide car bomb attack on a crowd of mostly Shi`a police and army recruits
in al-Hilla kills 125 and wounds about 130.
Most of the dead were police and army recruits, but civilians from the
market across the street were also killed.

March 10 - A
suicide bomber strikes a Shi`a mosque during a funeral in Mosul, killing at least forty-seven and
wounding more than 100.

April 20 -
Nineteen Iraqi soldiers are found executed in a stadium in Haditha.

April 24 -
Two bombs kill fifteen Iraqis and wound fifty-seven near the Shi`a Ahl al-Bayt
mosque in Baghdad.

May 1 - A car
bomb kills at least twenty-five and wounds more than fifty at the funeral of Sayyid
Talib Sayyid Wahhab, an official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, in Tal
Afar.

May 4 - A
suicide bomber kills forty-six civilians and wounds about 100 as they are
waiting to sign up for the police in Arbil.

May 5 - A
suicide bomber blew himself up outside an army recruitment center in Baghdad, killing thirteen
and wounding fifteen.

May 6 - A
suicide car bomber kills fifty-eight Iraqi civilians and wounds 44 more at a
vegetable market in the mostly Shi`a town of Suwayra.

May 11 - A
suicide bomber kills at least thirty-one people and wounds more than sixty-six
in Tikrit.

May 11 - A
suicide bomber kills thirty-two and wounds more than forty outside a police and
army recruitment center in Hawija.

May 15 -
Police find the bodies of twelve Iraqi men killed execution-style in
northeastern Baghdad, thirteen bodies in eastern
Baghdad, and
eleven more near al-Iskandariyya.

May 23 - Two
suicide car bombs kill fifteen Iraqis outside the home of Hasan Bagdash, a
Turkoman politician, in Tal Afar. Bagdash survived the attack.

May 23 - A
suicide car bomber kills at least ten people and wounds thirty outside a Shi`a
mosque in al-Mahmudiyya.

May 23 - A
car bomb kills eleven Iraqis and wounds more than 110 outside a Baghdad restaurant popular
with the police.

June 2 - An
explosion at a restaurant in Tuz Khormatu kills twelve people.

June 3 - A
suicide bomber kills ten Iraqis and wounds ten more at a home in Sa`ud, a
remote village near Balad.

June 7 -
Three explosions in and around Hawija kill thirty-four people; the deadliest
kills ten people at a checkpoint on the outskirts of town.

June 11 -
Gunmen open fire on a minibus in Diyara, killing eleven Iraqi construction
workers.

June 14 - A
suicide bomber kills twenty-three people outside a bank in Kirkuk, among them some pensioners.

June 19 - A
suicide bomber detonates his charges in a popular Baghdad restaurant during lunchtime, killing
twenty-three people.

July 2 - A
suicide bomber with explosives hidden beneath his clothing targets a police
recruitment center in Baghdad,
killing sixteen people and wounding twenty-two.

July 10 - An
attacker detonates an explosive vest outside a Baghdad army recruitment center, killing
twenty-five and wounding forty-seven.

July 13 - A
suicide car bomb explodes next to U.S.
troops handing out candy and toys to children, killing thirty-two children and
one U.S.
soldier.

July 16 - A
suicide car bomber detonates his explosives underneath a propane tanker that
insurgents had hijacked and parked near a Shi`a mosque south of Baghdad. At least
ninety-eight people die and 156 are wounded.

July 24 - A
suicide car bomber kills twenty-five people and wounds thirty-three others near
al-Rashad police station in Baghdad.
Iraqi police are among the casualties but most of the victims are civilians.

July 29 - At
least forty-eight people are killed and fifty-eight wounded in a suicide bomb
attack on an army recruitment center in the northern town of Rabi`a.

August 17 -
Three car bombs near the Nadha bus station in Baghdad
and at the nearby al-KindiHospital kill up to
forty-three people.

September
14-15 More than one dozen car bombs and suicide bomb attacks in Shi`a
neighborhoods of Baghdad
killed nearly 200 people. Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the
attacks and declared "all-out war" on the Shi`a population.

September 17
- A suicide car bomb killed eleven Shi`a worshippers as they left a Baghdad mosque, and
wounded twenty-four.

Council
on Foreign Relations (see http://cfr.org/reg_index.php?id=6|35||12])

Acknowledgments

This report is based primarily on research from in January
and February 2005 in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, where Human Rights Watch
researchers interviewed victims and witnesses of insurgent attacks. More
victims and international humanitarian organizations were interviewed during a
subsequent week in Amman, Jordan. Security conditions
prohibited travel to Iraq's
center or south.

The report was edited by Sarah Leah Whitson, executive
director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division, Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle
East and North Africa Division, Widney Brown, deputy program
director of Human Rights Watch, and Joe Saunders, deputy program director of
Human Rights Watch. James Ross,
senior legal adviser to Human Rights Watch, edited the report and wrote the
sections on legal standards. Assef Ashraf, associate for the Middle
East and North Africa Division, and Andrea Holley, manager of
outreach and publications, prepared this report for production. Additional
production assistance was provided by Fitzroy Hepkins,
mail manager, and Jagdish Parikh, online communications content coordinator.

Human Rights Watch acknowledges the cooperation of numerous
individuals and organizations in Iraq
and Jordan
who provided assistance and logistical support, but who cannot be named due to
security concerns. Sincere thanks go to the victims and witnesses who gave
testimony about the atrocities they had experienced or seen.

Human Rights Watch would also like to thank the Rockefeller
Brothers Fund, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Stichting
Vluchteling, NOVIB, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the David and Lucile Packard
Foundation, the Oak Foundation, the Ruth McLean Bowman Bowers Foundation, ACT
Netherlands, a joint project of Kerkinactie and ICCO, and the many individuals
who contributed to Human Rights Watch's Iraq emergency fund.

[2]
Other relevant Human Rights Watch reports on Iraq are: Leadership Failure:
Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the U.S. Army's 82nd
Airborne Division, September 2005; Getting Away with Torture: Command
Responsibility for the U.S. Abuse of Detainees, April 2005; The New
Iraq: Torture and Ill-treatment of Detainees in Iraqi Custody, January
2005; Claims in Conflict: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq,
August 2004; The Road To Abu Ghraib, June 2004; Off Target: The
Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq, December 2003; Hearts
and Minds: Post-war Civilian Casualties in Baghdad by U.S. Forces, October
2003; Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence and Abduction of Women and Girls in
Baghdad, July 2003; Violent Response: the U.S. Army in al-Falluja,
June 2003; and Basra: Crime and Insecurity Under British Occupation,
June 2003.

[3] On July 19, 2005,
for example, unknown gunmen in Baghdad
killed Mijbil Shaikh al-`Issa, a Sunni representative on the Constitution
Drafting Committee of the Transitional National Assembly, Dahmen al-Jabouri, an
adviser to the Committee, and their driver. (Alissa J. Rubin, "Sunni Arabs Halt
Work on Constitution After Killings," Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2005.) On August 19, 2005,
insurgents in Mosul
abducted and executed three members of the largest Sunni Arab political party,
the Iraqi Islamic Party, as they were putting up posters that urged Sunnis to
vote in a referendum for a new constitution planned for October 2005. ("Iraqi
Sunni Party Workers Killed", BBC, August 19, 2005, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4167304.stm,
as of August 19,
2005.)

[6]Ansar al-Islam began fighting the two principal secular Kurdish
parties in 2001. U.S. forces
destroyed the group's bases during the 2003 air war on Iraq, killing some members and
forcing others to disperse. For background on the group, see Human Rights Watch
Backgrounder, Ansar al-Islam in Iraqi Kurdistan,
available at www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/ansarbk020503.htm.

[7]According to one press account, Ansar al-Sunna was established
five months after the U.S.
entered Iraq.
In its first statement to the press on September 20, 2003, the group said, "It is
known that jihad in Iraq has
become an individual duty of every Muslim after the atheist enemy assailed the territory of Islam." (Dr. Hani al-Siba'i, "Ansar
al-Islam, Ansar al-Sunnah Army, Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, and Abu-Hafs Brigades,"
posted March 14,
2004, on al-Basra Net, translated by FBIS Report in Arabic, March 14, 2004.

[8]See the website of Jama`at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, in Arabic, available
at http://www.tawhed.ws/, as of September 26, 2005.

"What is Driving the Iraqi Insurgency,"
Council on Foreign Relations, May 20, 2005, available at

http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=8117,
as of June 19,
2005. In one example, a January 2005 statement announcing the
existence of the Mujahadin of Iraq Army said the group had veteran officers and
soldiers. ("Saddam Hussain Loyalists Said to Have Formed 'Mujahadin of Iraq
Army,'" BBC Monitoring Middle East, excerpt from report by `Usamah
Mahdi, "International Information Centre to Guide Iraqi Voters Abroad. Saddam
Loyalists Establish 'Mujahidin of Iraq Army,'" published by Elaph
website on January
7, 2005.)

[15]
A video broadcast by the Islamic Army in Iraq in April 2005 showed the
execution of a Bulgarian pilot from a civilian helicopter the group had shot
down. ("US Military Probes Iraq Chopper Crash," Agence France-Presse, April 22, 2005,
and Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Robert F. Worth, "A Private Copter Crashes in
Iraq," New York Times, April 22, 2005.)

[17]For a detailed description of abuses by Iraqi government-affiliated
militias, see Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru, "Militias on the Rise Across
Iraq," Washington
Post, August
21, 2005.

[18]
In the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters, for example,
three groups claimed responsibility for the attack (see chapter VIII of this
report, "Attacks on Humanitarian Organizations and the U.N."). In the case of
the two Italian humanitarian aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Toretta,
abducted in Baghdad on September 7, 2004, a group
calling itself the Islamic Jihad Organization in Iraq said on September 22 that it
had killed the two women. The next day, another group, the Supporters of
al-Zawahri, said it had beheaded the Italians. The women's captors eventually
released them both unharmed. (See Nadia Abou el-Magd, "Militants Claim to Have
Killed Italians," Associated Press, September 23, 2004.)

[24]
For a detailed account of fighter smuggling from Syria,
see Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, "Outside Iraq
but Deep in the Fight; A Smuggler of Insurgents Reveals Syria's Influential,
Changing Role," Washington Post, June 8, 2005.

[25]
Michael E. O'Hanlon and Adriana Lins de Albuquerque, "The State of Iraq: an
Update," New York Times, June 3, 2005. The International Institute for
Strategic Studies in the United
Kingdom made a similar estimate in October
2004, but with a total insurgency figure of 18,000. (The Military Balance
2004/05, International Institute for Strategic Studies, October 19, 2004.)

[28] See
James Glanz, "Rings That Kidnap Iraqis Thrive on Big Threats and Bigger
Profits," New York Times, March 28, 2005, Monte Morin, "Crime as Lethal
as Warfare in Iraq," Los Angeles Times, March 20, 2005, and
"Filipino Returns Home After Hostage Ordeal in Iraq," Reuters, June 23, 2005.

[31]
"What is Driving the Iraqi Insurgency," Council on Foreign Relations, May 20, 2005,
available http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=8117, as of June 19, 2005.

[32]
In response to a Human Rights Watch request in 2003 for information about
civilian casualties, the Multi-National Force's press office replied:

It is tragic that civilians have died as a result of
our operations and we are fully aware that every time a civilian is caught in
the line of coalition fire, we potentially lose allies among the Iraqi
population. In terms of statistics, we have no definitive estimates of civilian
casualties for the overall campaign. It would be irresponsible to give firm
estimates given the wide range of variables. For example, we have had cases
where during a conflict, we believed civilians had been wounded and perhaps
killed, but by the time our forces have a chance to fully assess the outcomes
of the contact, the wounded or dead civilians have been removed from the scene.
Factors such as this make it impossible for us to maintain an accurate account.

(E-mail sent to Human Rights Watch from Multi-National
Force press office on September 29, 2003.)

[33]Iraq
Body Count, A Dossier of Civilian Casualties 2003-2005, July 19, 2005. See
www.iraqbodycount.net. The
list of media sources is on the report's methodology page.

[37]Sabrina Tavernise, "Data Shows Rising Toll of Iraqis from
Insurgency," New York
Times, July
14, 2005. For other Iraqi government figures, see Bushra Juhi,
"Casualties From Iraq Insurgency Up in May," Associated Press, June 1, 2005. According
to a cited health ministry official, insurgents killed 434 civilians and
wounded 775 in May 2005, up from 299 and 598, respectively, the previous month.

[38] "Civilian
Deaths in Iraq
Violence Far Exceed Those of Military and Police, Government Says," Associated
Press, July
14, 2005. The number of insurgents killed during the first six
months of 2005 was 781, the Iraqi government said.

[39]
See, for example, Anthony H. Cordesman, Center for Strategic and International
Studies, Iraq's Evolving Insurgency, Updated as of May 19, 2005, Jeffrey White,
"Assessing the Iraqi Insurgency (Parts I and II)," Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, Policy Watch #978, March 24, 2005, and Iraq: Insurgency Goals,
Council on Foreign Relations, May 20, 2005.

[40]"Iraqi Militants Behead Man Who Worked With U.S. Forces in Mosul," Associated Press, October 23, 2004.

[42]
Alistair Lyon, "Philippines
Announces Pullout to Save Iraq
Hostage," Reuters, July 12, 2004, and "Hostage Takers Widen Demands Beyond
Iraqi Affairs," Agence France-Presse, August 29, 2004. The government
claimed that it was already planning to withdraw its fifty-one-person
contingent at the end of the month.

[46]
Some Iraqis and insurgent groups in Iraq claim that attacks on civilians are
the work of foreign forces, particularly from Israel and the U.S., in an
attempt to cause chaos and to rally
the Shi`a and Kurdish populations around the new government. In March 2005, for
example, the influential Sunni group, the Association of Muslim Scholars,
condemned an attack on a Shi`a mosque and said that foreign elements must have
been involved. "The Iraqis are not programmed to kill. Even the extremist
Islamists, we know them and we know how they think," an association spokesman
said. "They have no such ideology which makes them sanction the killing of
innocent people without any religious or moral scruples." (BBC Monitoring
Middle East, "Iraqi Sunni Clerics Spokesman Rejects Iraqi Involvement in
Shi'i Mosque Blast," al-Jazeera Television, March 10, 2005.) Another
example was an article in Quds Press that argued, citing "special sources,"
that the U.S.
had sent a special unit to commit assassination, sabotage and random bombings
attributed to the insurgency in order to "smear its reputation." ("U.S. 'Special Unit' Said in Iraq for 'Dirty Operations,'" Quds
Press, August
3, 2005.)

[61]
See ICRC, Commentary on the Additional Protocols, p. 516. The Commentary also
explains that under Protocol II "direct part in hostilities" implies "that
there is a sufficient causal relationship between the act of participation and
its immediate consequences." Ibid. p. 1453.

[62]
See Protocol I, art. 50(1); ICRC, Customary International Humanitarian Law,
rule 16 ("Each party to the conflict must do everything feasible to verify that
targets are military objectives"), citing Protocol I, article 57(2)(a); 1999
Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural
Property, article 7.

[67]
The issue of reciprocity is addressed in the ICRC's Commentary to Protocol I,
para. 51: "The prohibition against invoking reciprocity in order to shirk the
obligations of humanitarian law is absolute. This applies irrespective of the
violation allegedly committed by the adversary. It does not allow the
suspension of the application of the law either in part or as a whole, even if
this is aimed at obtaining reparations from the adversary or a return to a
respect for the law from him."

[68]
Neither Iraq
nor the United States are party to the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court.

[69]Such statements could help demonstrate that particular criminal
acts were knowingly part of an attack on a population, as necessary for showing
a crime against humanity. See e.g. Kayishema and Ruzindana, International
Criminal Court for Rwanda,
Trial Chamber, May
21, 1999, para. 133-34.

[70]Ali Kais al-Rubai, "Islamists Pledge Continued War on Coalition,"
IWPR, May
14, 2004.

[73]
According to one Iraqi press report, the Islamic Front of the Iraqi Resistance
is a Sunni group that announced its existence on May 30, 2004. It concentrates in
Ninewa and Diyala provinces and has at least two military wings: Salah al-Din
al-Ayubi Brigades and Sayf-Allah al-Maslul Brigades. (Samir Haddad and Mazin
Ghazi, "Who Kills Hostages in Iraq,"
al-Zawra, September
19, 2004.)

[76]
Margaret Hassan, the head of CARE in Iraq, was abducted in October 2004
and killed the next month. See Chapter VIII of this report, "Attacks on
Humanitarian Organizations and the U.N."

[77]
The "two Simonas" are the Italians Simona Pari and Simona Torretta from the
organization Un Ponte per Baghdad ("Bridge to Baghdad"), who were kidnapped
in September 2004 with two Iraqi staff and released after three weeks.

[78]
"Letter From Iraqi Patriotic Alliance
Addressed to Our Brothers All Around the World," Iraqi Patriotic Alliance
website, http://www.iraq-ipa.com/,
as of June 6, 2005.

[88]
Al-Salafiyya (derived from the word al-Salaf, denoting the companions of the
Prophet Muhammad) as a doctrine or philosophy emerged during the latter half of
the 19th Century. Salafism urged believers to return to the pure form of Islam
as practiced by Muhammad and it rejected any practice not directly supported by
the Qur'an. At the same time, Salafism encouraged Muslims to interpret
religious texts for themselves through the practice of ijtihad
(independent reasoning), rather than blindly accept the interpretations by
theologians of religious texts. (See Denoeux, G., "The Forgotten Swamp:
Navigating Political Islam," Middle East
Policy, Vol. IX (2), June 2002.) Denoeux also discusses a "second
generation" of Islamist movements witnessed during the 1980s and 1990s, termed
"Jihadist Salafi." These movements "embrace a strict, literal interpretation of
Islam, but combine it with an emphasis on jihad, understood here as holy war. To
them, jihad becomes the prime instrument through which the "Salafi" desire to
"return" to the original message of Islam will be turned into reality. Some
concentrate their attacks on the "infidel regimes" at the helm of the country
in which they operate. Such regimes are denounced as Muslim in name only and
for having become completely subservient to the West." Ibid.

[94]
In February 2004, the U.S. government released a letter it claims to have
intercepted from Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi to Osama bin Ladan, in which al-Zarqawi
talks of provoking Shi`a Muslims into attacking Sunnis, and thereby starting a
civil war. Shi`a Muslims are "the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious
scorpion, the spying enemy and the penetrating venom," al-Zarqawi wrote,
according to the U.S.
translation. He added, "If we succeed in dragging them into the arena of
sectarian war, it will become possible to awaken the inattentive Sunnis as they
feel imminent danger and annihilating death at the hands of these Sabeans." See
February 2004 Coalition Provisional
Authority English translation of Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi letter obtained by
United States Government in Iraq,
available atwww.state.gov/p/nea/rls/31694.htm,
as of June 12,
2005. According to Anthony H. Cordesman, an insurgency expert at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies in WashingtonD.C.,
car bombings and suicide bombings by radical Islamist groups
are "deliberately designed to provoke something approaching civil war." See "Cordesman: Crucial to Bring Sunnis Into Government and Give
Iraqis More Control Over Aid Money," Interview with Council on Foreign
Relations, June
30, 2005, available at www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=8233,
as of July 20,
2005.

[110]"Killings of Iraqi Officials Since Elected Government Was
Announced April 28," Associated Press, May 23, 2005 and Alexandra Zavis, "Iraqi
Police Find 38 Bodies Dumped in Three Parts of Iraq in Less Than 24 Hours,"
Associated Press, May 15, 2005.

[113]See Human Rights Watch reports: Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal
Campaign Against the Kurds, July 1993; Iraq's Crime of Genocide: The
Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds, May 1994; Iraq: Forcible Expulsions of
Ethnic Minorities, March 2003; and Claims in Conflict: Reversing Ethnic
Cleansing in Iraq, August 2004.

[133]
According to one Assyrian Christian group, some Christian families got letters
from the Islamic Troops of Badr in Najaf that threatened kidnappings and death
if female family members did not wear veils. For English and Arabic versions of
the letter, see www.assyrianchristians.com/news.htm,
accessed June 7,
2005.

[148]
"Iraqi Militants Behead Man Who Worked With U.S. Forces in Mosul,"
Associated Press, October 23, 2004, and "Al-Qaeda-linked Group Beheads
Alleged 'Spy' in Iraq:
Website," Agence France-Presse, October 23, 2004.

[149]
Special Inspector General for Iraq
Reconstruction, Report to Congress, April 30, 2005.

[151]
Sabrina Tavernise, "Iraqis Working for Americans Are in Insurgents' Cross
Hairs," New York Times, September
18, 2004. For another article about attacks on translators, see "Iraqi
Translator Defiant in Face of Death Threats Longs for Peace," Agence
France-Presse, June
25, 2004.

[177]The two primary sources are "Attacks Against Leading Iraqi
Figures Since May 2003," Agence France-Presse, January 4, 2005, and
"Killings of Iraqi Officials Since Elected Government Was Announced April 28," Associated
Press, May
23, 2005.

[178]
Dexter Filkins, "Insurgents Vowing to Kill Iraqis Who Brave the Polls on
Sunday," New York
Times, January
26, 2005.

[181]The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps was set up by the Coalition
Provisional Authority, and then incorporated into the Iraqi National Guard in
June 2004.

[182]
IFES defined election-related violence as "violence that is aimed at hindering
or disrupting any part of the electoral process."

[183]
International Federation of Electoral Systems, "Iraq Election Violence, Education
and Resolution Report on the January 30 Elections," February 23, 2005.

[184]
On November 13,
2004, unknown gunmen shot and killed Iraqi Communist Party
Politburo member and delegate in the interim National Assembly, Wadhah Hassan
Abdul Amir, along with two colleagues, while driving from Baghdad
to Kirkuk. (See
http://www.iraqcp.org/members2/0041115icpengl.htm, accessed January 5, 2005).

[186]
The victim in Salman Pak was Mahmoud Madaeni, who was shot to death with his
son and four bodyguards. Khaled
Yacoub Oweis, "Iraq Poll
Fears Deepen as Sistani Aides Killed," Reuters, January 13, 2005, and
Anthony Shadid, "Sunni Group Says It Killed Shiite Cleric," Washington Post, January 15, 2005.

[193]
On April 9, 2005,
men passed out leaflets from al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia at mosques in Mosul that threatened
Sunnis who joined the Iraqi armed forces. "Sunnis must ban their sons from
collaborating with the infidel crusaders," the leaflet reportedly said.
"Allowing Sunnis to join the tyrannical army would make jihad lose its
meaning." (Dexter Filkins, "Demonstrators in Iraq
Demand That U.S.
Leave," New York Times, April 10, 2005.)

[202]
See, e.g. Protocol I, art. 52(3) on the general protection of civilian objects:
"In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian
purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is
being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be
presumed not to be so used."

[203]
Warzer Jaff and Robert F. Worth, "Blast Kills 122 at Iraqi Clinic in Attack on
Security Recruits, New York Times, March 2, 1005. See also
Haider Abbas and Mussab al-Khairalla, "Suicide Car Bomb Kills 110 in Iraq,"
Reuters, February
28, 2005.

[205]
"Suicide Bomber Killers 45 in Northern Iraq City," Agence France-Presse,
May 4, 2005,
and Rory Carroll and Michael Howard, "They Were Lining Up To Join Iraq's
Police-But in the Queue Was a Suicide Bomber," The Guardian, May 5, 2005.

[208]
The United Nations had been present in Iraq for more than forty years,
with an enlarged presence in the mid-1990s to administer the Oil-for-Food
Program. In anticipation of hostilities between Iraq
and the United States,
the United Nations evacuated its 387 international staff members on March 18, 2003.
They stayed out of Iraq
during the U.S.-led invasion and returned to Baghdad on May 1, 2003.[208] De
Mello arrived with his staff and security detail one month and one day after
that.

[229]
The killing of 'Ala' Andraous was not the
first violence Caritas had directly experienced in Iraq. One year before, on November 12, 2003, a
suicide bomb struck Italian police headquarters in al-Nasiriyya, killing
eighteen Italians and nine Iraqis, and wounding more than 105. The bomb damaged
the Caritas Iraq office, which lay a few hundred meters away, and seriously
wounded the director of its WellBabyCenter.
According to Caritas, "the force of the blast blew out windows," and twelve
staff members were injured. "This attack happened in a quiet residential area,
and it has caused utter devastation," the director of Caritas Iraq said. (John F. Burns,
"At Least 26 Killed in a Bombing of an Italian Compound in Iraq," New York Times, February 13, 2003, "Death
Toll Rises to 27 at Italian Base Bombing in Southern Iraq," Agence
France-Presse, November
13, 2003, and "Caritas Iraq Workers Injured in Nasiriya Suicide
Bombing, Caritas press release, November 13, 2003.)

[255]Al-Arabiya Television, June 20, 2005, as translated by the United
Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, Arabic and Regional Media Review, June 21, 2005,
and al-Zaman, June
19, 2005, as translated by the BBC, Iraqi Press Highlights
19 June 2005, June
20, 2005.

[266]
"French, Iraqi hostages freed, 20 bodies found elsewhere," Agence
France-Presse, June
12, 2005. For more information and background on Aubenas and
al-Sa'di, see the "For Florence and Hussein" website at www.pourflorenceethussein.org/english/index.shtml,
as of June 12,
2005.

[274]See ICRC, Customary International Humanitarian Law, rule 34
("Civilian journalists are not to be confused with 'war correspondents'. The
latter are journalists who accompany the armed forces of a State without being
members thereof.").

[295]
Women for Women International, Windows of
Opportunity: The Pursuit of Gender Equality in Post-War Iraq, January 2005. For a media
account of the threats women receive, see Sahar al-Haideri and Wa'ad Ibraheem,
"Insurgents Impose Curbs on Women," Institute
for War and Peace Reporting, July 5, 2005.

[296]
Many women and girls do not report sexual violence because they fear doing so
may provoke "honor" killings and social stigmatization. For others, the
obstacles to filing and pursuing a police complaint or obtaining a forensic
examination that would provide legal proof of sexual violence hamper them from
receiving medical attention and pursuing justice. See Human Rights Watch
report, Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence
and Abduction of Women and Girls in Baghdad,
July 2003.

[297]
See Hala Jaber, "Rebels Kill Iraqi Women as 'Betrayers' of Islam," The Times (London), March 20, 2005. See also James Glanz,
"Rings That Kidnap Iraqis Thrive on Big Threats and Bigger Profits," New York Times, March 28, 2005. According to the
article, up to 5,000 Iraqi men and women have been kidnapped in the last year and
a half, mostly for money.

[309]
For a list of foreign hostages taken in Iraq,
see, "Foreign Hostages Still Held
Captive in Iraq," Agence
France-Presse, July
3, 2005, and "Foreign Hostages in Iraq," Reuters, July 27, 2005.
The names of the missing and killed is believed to be accurate, but the list
excludes dozens of non-Iraqis who were abducted and then released.

[321]
Alistair Lyon, "Philippines
Announces Pullout to Save Iraq
Hostage," Reuters, July 13, 2004. The government claimed that it was already planning to withdraw its
fifty-one-person contingent at the end of the month.

[332]
See ICRC Commentary on the Additional Protocols, Protocol II, article 1(1), p.
1352: "The term 'armed forces' of the High Contracting Party should be
understood in the broadest sense. In fact, this term was chosen in preference
to others suggested such as, for example, 'regular armed forces', in order to
cover all the armed forces, including those not included in the definition of
the army in the national legislation of some countries (national guard,
customs, police forces or any other similar force)."

[343]
"Al-Zarqawi's Group Claims Responsibility for Killing Security Troops in Northern Iraq," Associated Press, November 28, 2004.
The Emergency Response Units were announced by then-Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad
'Allawi in late June 2004 as part of the government's plan to establish new
security structures within the police and armed forces. The units were meant to
take part in "special operations," he said, but he did not elaborate on their
nature.

[348]
Jason Keyser, "Vengeful Insurgents Ramp Up Iraq
Attacks," Associated Press, February 3, 2005, and "Surge in Violence in Iraq
Ends Post-election Lull," Associated Press, February 3, 2005. An Islamic group
called al-Takfir wal-Hijrah emerged in Egypt
in the 1960s, but it is not clear if it is linked to the group in Iraq.

[356]
See ICRC, CIHL, rule 14 ("Launching an attack which may be expected to cause
incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian
objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the
concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited.") The
principle of proportionality is codified in Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12
August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed
Conflicts (Protocol I), of 8 June 1977, Article 51.

[358]
Luke Harding and Mohammad Haidar, "Iraq
British-controlled Basra
Suffers Its Worst Day Since Saddam's Fall as Bombs Destroy Buses Full of
Children: School Sees All Her Friends Perish in Blast," The Guardian, April 22, 2004.

[369]
Human Rights Watch, Off Target: The
Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq, December 2003.

[370]
Under the Hague Regulations, to which the U.S.
is a party, an occupying power has a duty to restore and ensure, as far as
possible, public order and safety in the territory under its authority. Hague
Regulations, article 43. Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the duty to ensure
public order and safety attaches as soon as the occupying force is in contact
with the civilians of that territory, that is, at the soonest possible moment. See
ICRC Commentary to the Fourth Geneva Convention,
article 6. This principle is reflected in the U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10, Law
of Land Warfare:

Military commanders on the spot must prevent and where
necessary suppress serious violations involving the local population under
their control or subject to their authority. Ensuring local security includes
protecting people from reprisals and revenge attacks, such as against minority
groups or local officials. Commanders are responsible for restoring and
ensuring public order and safety as far as possible, and shall take all
appropriate measures within their power to do this. See ICRC Commentary to
Protocol I, article 87.

[371]
Human Rights Watch report, Hearts and
Minds: Post-War Civilian Deaths in Baghdad
Caused by U.S.
Forces, October 2003. For documentation of the first major incident in
al-Falluja in April 2003, when the U.S. opened fire on a demonstration, killing
seventeen and wounding more than seventy, see Human Rights Watch report, Violent Response: the U.S. Army in
al-Falluja, June 2003.

[378]
As explained in chapter XVI, "Legal Standards and the Conflict in Iraq,"
insurgents operating in Iraq do not enjoy the so-called "combatant's privilege"
under international humanitarian law, which means that they may be arrested and
charged with taking up arms under domestic crimes like treason, murder or the
illegal possession of arms. They still enjoy the basic rights to be treated
humanely and to have fair and independent trial. See generally ICRC, Customary International Humanitarian Law, chapter
32 on fundamental guarantees and chapter 37 on persons deprived of their liberty.

[382]
SCIRI's first militia was the Badr Brigade, founded in the 1980's in Iran,
where SCIRI leaders were living. After the U.S.
invasion of Iraq,
it transformed itself into the Badr Organization of Reconstruction
and Development and pledged to disarm. Active mostly in Baghdad and
Shi`a-controlled southern Iraq, the Badr Organization
remained armed and maintains ties to the Ministry of Interior, currently run by
a former high-ranking Badr Brigade official. See Edward Wong, "Leaders of Iraq
Support Militias and Widen Rift," New York Times, June 9, 2005, and Council on
Foreign Relations, Iraq:
Militia Groups, June
9, 2005, available at http://www.cfr.org/pub8175/lionel_beehner/iraqmilitia_groups.php,
as of June 19,
2005.

[389]
Human Rights Watch reviewed the transcripts of the program from April 11-14,
2005.

[390]
Maass, "The Salvadorization of Iraq,"
New York Times Magazine, May 1, 2005.
According to the article, the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry is investigating the
case.

[391]
The four Geneva Conventions are: Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the
Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (First Geneva
Convention), 75 U.N.T.S. 31, entered into force October 21, 1950; Geneva Convention
for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members
of Armed Forces at Sea (Second Geneva Convention), 75 U.N.T.S. 85, entered into
force October 21,
1950; Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of
War (Third Geneva Convention), 75 U.N.T.S. 135, entered into force October 21, 1950;
Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War
(Fourth Geneva Convention), 75 U.N.T.S. 287, entered into force October 21, 1950.

[392]
Hague Regulations annexed to the Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and
Customs of War on Land, 1907 (Hague Regulations).

[393]
International humanitarian law provides that once an occupying power has
assumed

authority
over a territory, it is obliged to restore and maintain, as far as possible,
public order

and
safety. Hague Regulations, article 43. U.S. President George W. Bush declared
an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003, but the U.S. government did not contest
that it was an occupying power. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483 (May 22, 2003), recognized
the situation in Iraq
as one of occupation under international law. In a September 2003 meeting with
Human Rights Watch, officials from the U.S. Judge Advocate General and the CPA
General Counsel's office said that there had been no cessation of hostilities
in Iraq,
and therefore the coalition was in "a state of armed conflict and a state of
occupation." Human Rights Watch interview with Col. Marc Warren, Col. Mike Kelly
and Maj. P.J. Perrone, Baghdad,
September 23,
2003.

[396]
The CPA passed regulations, orders and memoranda on issues ranging from
security to taxes. It also prepared the Law on Administration for the State of Iraq for the
Transitional Period (Transitional Administration Law, or TAL), which was
intended as temporary constitutional law. The validity of certain provisions of
the TAL under the law of occupation is a matter of dispute. See, e.g. Naomi Klein, "Iraq is Not America's
to Sell,"The
Guardian (UK),Nov. 7, 2003; Antonia Juhasz, "The Handover That Wasn't,"
Foreign Policy in Focus, posted July 20, 2004.

[397]
The U.N. Security Council endorsed the Iraqi Interim Government on June 8, 2004, in
resolution 1546. The CPA acknowledged the members of the interim government the
next day (CPA Regulation 10, Members of Designated Iraqi Interim Government
with Annex A, June
9, 2004).

[399]
The U.N. Security Council endorsed the Interim Iraqi Government on June 8, 2004, in
resolution 1546. The CPA acknowledged the members of the interim government the
next day (CPA Regulation 10, Members of Designated Iraqi Interim Government
with Annex A, June
9, 2004).

[400]
The ICRC issued a statement on August 5, 2004 that stated in part:

After the hand-over of power from the Coalition
Provisional Authority to the interim Iraqi Government on 28 June 2004,
following the United Nations Security Council resolution 1546 stating the end
of the foreign occupation, the legal situation has changed. As stated in the
resolution, the presence and the military operations of the Multi-National
Forces in Iraq are based on
the consent of the Interim Government of Iraq. The ICRC therefore no longer
considers the situation in Iraq
to be that of an international armed conflict between the US-led coalition and
the state of Iraq
and covered by the Geneva Conventions of 1949 in their entirety. The current
hostilities in Iraq
between armed fighters on one hand opposing the Multi-National Force (MNF-I)
and/or the newly established authorities on the other, amount to a
non-international armed conflict. This means that all parties including MNF-I
are bound by Article 3 common to the four Geneva
Conventions, and by customary rules applicable to non-international armed
conflicts.

For an analysis of the occupation's legal end, see Sir
Adam Roberts, "The End of Occupation in Iraq," International
Humanitarian Law Research Initiative, June 28, 2004, available at http://www.ihlresearch.org/iraq/feature.php?a=51,
as of September
15, 2005.

[401]
An authoritative study of customary international humanitarian law is the
two-volume ICRC Customary International
Humanitarian Law (2005). Important sources of customary international
humanitarian law are the First and Second Additional Protocols of 1977 to the
1949 Geneva
Conventions (respectively Protocol I and Protocol II). Protocol I, which has
been ratified by Iraq,
applies to international armed conflicts but many provisions on the methods and
means of warfare are recognized as reflective of customary law during internal
armed conflicts. Protocol II applies during internal armed conflicts and
virtually all of its provisions are considered indicative of customary law. See
generally Protocol Additional to the Geneva
Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of
International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), of 8 June 1977 and Protocol
Additional to the Geneva
Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of
Non- International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II), of 8 June 1977.

[402]See, e.g. Theodore Meron, Human Rights and Humanitarian Norms as
Customary Law, 1989, pp.62-70, 74-78 (discussing the customary law
character of certain aspects of Protocol I). In 1987, the U.S. State Department Deputy Legal Advisor gave
a speech in which he enumerated many of the principles enshrined in Protocol I
that the U.S.
considers customary international law. See "The Sixth Annual American Red-Cross
Washington College of Law Conference on International Humanitarian Law: A
Workshop on Customary International Law and the 1977 Protocols Additional to
the 1949 Geneva Conventions," The American University Journal of
International Law and Policy, Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1987, pp. 419-427
(containing remarks of Michael J. Matheson).

[410]
If the constitution is accepted by more than 50 percent of voters, elections
for a new Assembly will be held within two months. If the constitution is
rejected, the Transitional Assembly will be dissolved and Iraqis will elect a
second Transitional Assembly to redraft the constitution. The permanent
constitution also will fail if rejected by two-thirds of the voters of any
three provinces.

[414]
Civilians include those persons who are "directly linked to the armed forces,
including those who accompany the armed forces without being members thereof,
such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, supply contractors,
members of labour units, or of services responsible for the welfare of the
armed forces, members of the crew of the merchant marine and the crews of civil
aircraft employed in the transportation of military personnel, material or supplies.
. . . Civilians employed in the production, distribution and storage of
munitions of war. . . ." See M. Bothe, K. Partsch, and W. Solf, New Rules for Victims of Armed Conflicts:
Commentary on the Two 1977 Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1982), pp. 293-94.

[415]
Protocol I, Article 50(1). Some states have expressed reservations about the
military implications of a strict interpretation of this rule. According to the
ICRC, "when there is a situation of doubt, a careful assessment has to be made
as to whether there are sufficient indications to warrant an attack. One cannot
automatically attack anyone who might appear dubious." See ICRC, Customary International Humanitarian Law, pp.
23-24.

[418]
ICRC, Commentary on the Additional
Protocols, p. 618-19. This is a broader definition than "attacks" and
includes at a minimum preparation for combat and return from combat. Bothe, New Rules for Victims of Armed Conflicts,
p. 303.

[420]
ICRC, Customary International
Humanitarian Law, rule 4, citing Protocol I, article 43(1). The commentary
to rule 4 states: "Incorporation of paramilitary or armed law enforcement
agencies into armed forces is usually carried out through a formal act, for
example, an act of parliament. In the absence of formal incorporation, the
status of such groups will be judged on the facts and in the light of the
criteria for defining armed forces. When these units take part in hostilities
and fulfill the criteria of armed forces, they are considered combatants."
Ibid. p. 17.

[438]
Ibid., p. 685. As set out above, to constitute a legitimate military objective,
the object, selected by its nature, location, purpose or use must contribute
effectively to the enemy's military capability or activity, and its total or
partial destruction or neutralization must offer a "definite"
military advantage in the circumstances. See Protocol I, art. 52(2) where this
definition is codified.

[442]
ICRC, Customary International
Humanitarian Law, rule 65, citing Hague Regulations, article 23(b);
Protocol I, art. 37(1). Acts of perfidy include pretending to be a civilian,
who cannot be attacked, or feigning surrender (surrendering soldiers also
cannot be attacked) so that opposing forces let down their guard at the moment
of attack. Other examples include feigning protective status by the misuse of
emblems of the United Nations or the red cross and red crescent.

[444]
See generally, ICRC, Customary
International Humanitarian Law, chapter 43. Regarding command
responsibility of commanders of non-state armed groups, see ICTY, Prosecutor v. Aleksovski, Trial Chamber,
Judgment, case no. IT-95-14/1, June 25, 1999. ("Superior responsibility is
thus not reserved for official authorities. Any person acting de facto as
a superior may
be held responsible under Article 7(3) [of the ICTY statute on individual
criminal responsibility]. The decisive criterion in determining who is a superior according to
customary international law is not only the accused's formal legal status but
also his ability, as demonstrated by his duties and competence, to exercise
control." Para. 76).

[445]Under the laws of war, during a military occupation
the criminal laws of the occupied country remain in effect. The occupying power
may only set aside or modify laws that pose a security threat to the occupying
power or which contradict international legal standards (Fourth Geneva, art. 64). Any new
criminal laws must be publicized and ex post facto (retroactive) laws
are prohibited (Fourth Geneva,
art. 65).

The Iraqi Penal Code (Law
No. 111 of 1969), as amended, includes broad categories of offenses under which
those involved in insurgent activities might be prosecuted: offenses against
the internal security of the state (pt. II, ch. 2); offences that endanger the
public (pt. II, ch. 7); offenses affecting the life and physical safety of
others (pt. III, ch. 1); offenses affecting the freedom of an individual and
the deprivation of such freedom (pt. III, ch. 2); and, offenses against
property (pt. III, ch. 3).

[447]
International law prohibits the transfer, return (refoulement) or expulsion of
persons to countries where there are substantial grounds for believing that
they would be in danger of being subjected to torture. The prohibition against
torture and refoulement is absolute and cannot be waived under any
circumstances. See Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment, article 3. Both Iraq and the United States are party to the convention.

[448]History of the
United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Development of the Laws of War (1943), p. 179, quoted in Rodney Dixon, "Crimes against
humanity," in Commentary on the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court (O. Triffterer, ed.) (1999), p.
123.

[449]Rome Statute of
the International Criminal Court, 2187 U.N.T.S. 3, entered into force July 1, 2002.

[450]
See Rodney Dixon, "Crimes against humanity," in Commentary on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court (O. Triffterer, ed.) (1999), p. 122. This is the standard applied by
Article 7 of the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court. Iraq is not a state party to the
Rome Statute and is therefore not bound by it, but the definition in Article 7
accords with the conception of crimes against humanity in customary
international law.

[451]
Murder and torture are among the core offenses that have been included within
the definition of crimes against humanity at least since the adoption of the
charter establishing the Nuremberg
tribunal after World War II. The ICC Statute also lists: extermination, rape,
enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, persecution, enforced disappearance,
apartheid, and "other inhumane acts." ICC Statute, article 7(1).

[452]See, e.g.,Prosecutor v. Naletilic and Martinovic,International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Trial Chamber, March 31 2003, par. 235
("The population against whom the attack is directed is considered civilian if
it is predominantly civilian"); Prosecutor
v. Akayesu, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Trial
Chamber, September
2, 1998, par. 582 ("Where there are certain individuals within the
civilian population who do not come within the definition of civilians, this
does not deprive the population of its civilian character"); Prosecutor v.Jelisic, ICTY Trial Chamber, December 14, 1999, par. 54 ("The
presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within
the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian
character.").

[454]
See Prosecutor v. Tadic, ICTY Trial
Chamber, para. 646 ("it is now well
established thatthe actscanoccur on either a widespread basis or in a
systematic manner. Either one of these is sufficient to exclude isolated or
random acts.").

[456]Tadic, para.
648. In Kunarac, Kovac and Vokovic, the
Appeals Chamber stated that "patterns of crimes-that is the non-accidental
repetition of similar criminal conduct on a regular basis-are a common
expression of [a] systematic occurrence." Para.
94.

[457]
See Kupreskic et al., ICTY Trial
Chamber, January
14, 2000, para. 556: "[T]he
requisite mens rea for crimes against humanity appears to be comprised by (1)
the intent to commit the underlying offence, combined with (2) knowledge of the
broader context in which that offence occurs." See also Tadic, ICTY Appeals
Chamber, para. 271; Kayishema and Ruzindana, ICTR Trial Chamber, May 21, 1999, paras. 133-134.

[458]
For example, on July
7, 1999, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General
attached a disclaimer to the Sierra Leone Peace Agreement, saying "The United
Nations interprets that the amnesty and pardon in article nine of this
agreement shall not apply to international crimes of genocide, crimes against
humanity, war crimes, and other serious violations of international
humanitarian law." See also, Commission on Human Rights, resolutions 1999/34
and 1999/32; the Annual Report of the U.N. Committee Against Torture to the
General Assembly, 09/07/1996,A/51/44,
para. 117; and U.N. Human Rights Committee
General Comment 20, April
10, 1992.